Institutional Racism in Malaysia

Each time we read and hear or see how the Umno inspired racists, whether they are Umno leaders, civil servants, Umno-friendly Muslim Clerics, Umno owned mainstream media or Umno inspired Malay NGO's utter racist remarks against non Malays or non Muslims, the eunuch leaders of the non Malay / non Muslim BN Component parties are sickeningly silent. Even Hindraf, stays silent rather choosing to fire salvos at Pakatan Rakyat.

What's worrying is that the silence of the non Malays and non Muslims over the Institutional Racism practiced by the BN/Umno Regime only legitimizes the Ketuanan Melayu Agenda of Umno. When PERKASA, Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, Perak Mufti Harussani Zakaria or any other Malay Muslim bigot speaks and acts, you can be sure that it is Umno that is actually speaking and acting. BN/Umno is indeed two faced and is supported by their Eunuch's such as MCA, MIC, GERAKAN, PPP, SUPP, PBS, PBB etc.. to hoodwink the non Malays and non Muslims to continue supporting BN/Umno.

Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society. When the differential access becomes integral to institutions, it becomes common practice, making it difficult to rectify. Eventually, this racism dominates public bodies, private corporations, and public and private universities, and is reinforced by the actions of conformists and newcomers. Another difficulty in reducing institutionalized racism is that there is no sole, true identifiable perpetrator. When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population.

Professor James M. Jones postulates three major types of racism: (i) Personally-mediated, (ii) internalized, and (iii) institutionalized.[1] Personally-mediated racism includes the specific social attitudes inherent to racially-prejudiced action (the bigot’s differential assumptions about abilities, motives, and the intentions of others according to), discrimination (the differential actions and behaviours towards others according to their race), stereotyping, commission, and omission (disrespect, suspicion, devaluation, and dehumanization). Internalized racism is the acceptance, by members of the racially-stigmatized people, of negative perceptions about their own abilities and intrinsic worth, characterized by low self-esteem, and low esteem of others like them. This racism is manifested through embracing “whiteness” (e.g. stratification by skin colour in non-white communities), self-devaluation (e.g. racial slurs, nicknames, rejection of ancestral culture, etc.), and resignation, helplessness, and hopelessness (e.g. dropping out of school, failing to vote, engaging in health-risk practices, etc.).

Persistent negative stereotypes fuel institutional racism, and very much matter because they influence interpersonal relations. Racial stereotyping contributes to patterns of racial residential segregation, and shape the views of white people about crime, crime policy, and welfare policy, especially if the contextual information is stereotype-consistent. A great percentage of white Americans rate Black Americans and Latino Americans as less intelligent, preferring to live from welfare benefits rather than work, and “more difficult to get along with socially”.

Institutional racism is distinguished from the racial bigotry, by the existence of institutional systemic policies and practices meant to place non-white racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to the institution’s white members. Restrictive housing contracts (see restrictive covenants) and bank lending policies (see redlining) have been forms of institutional racism. The gross under-representation and often white washing of Hispanic and Asian males in mass media is another effective form of institutional racism. Other examples are racial profiling by security guards and police, use of stereotyped racial caricatures (e.g. "Indian" sport mascots), the under- and mis-representation of certain racial groups in the mass media, and race-based barriers to gainful employment and professional advancement. Additionally, the differential access to goods, services, and opportunities of society are defined within the term institutional racism, such as unpaved streets and roads, inherited socio-economic disadvantage, “standardized” tests (each ethnic group prepared for it differently; many are poorly prepared), et cetera.

Some sociologic investigators distinguish between institutional racism and structural racism. The former focus upon the norms and practices within an institution, the latter focus upon the interactions among institutions, interactions that produce racialized outcomes against non-white people. An important feature of structural racism (structured racialization) is that it cannot be reduced to individual prejudice or to the single function of an institution. Like-wise, it is important to note that once a structure is emplaced, its consequences likely will affect the entire population — not just the racially discriminated people. Structural racialization also underscores many of the institutional arrangements that are often identified as “American exceptionalism” — such as the non-existence of a labor party, weak labor unions, and a fragmented government system. Structural racialization borrows from system theory, which examines the interactions among institutions and entities and rejects reductionist thought; thus, there is a mutual, cumulative causation instead of a single cause. Using the system's approach for structural racialization calls into question whether or not race or social class is more important in the US. Instead, it suggests an interaction, between race and social class, and their consequences upon institutional design and institutional meaning.

The following is from Wikipedia:

Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy and Malay dominance in Malay) is the claim that the Malay people are the tuan (masters) of Malaysia. The Malaysian Chinese and Indian-Malaysians — who are significant ethnic minorities in Malaysia — are considered beholden to the Malays for granting them citizenship in return for special privileges, as established in Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia. This quid pro quo arrangement usually is referred to as the Malaysian social contract. The ketuanan Melayu concept usually is used by politicians of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the most influential Malaysian political party.

Although the ketuanan Melayu idea pre-dates Malaysian independence, the phrase ketuanan Melayu did not come into vogue until the early 2000s. The most vocal opposition to that is from non-Malay-based parties, such as the Malaysian People's Movement Party (Gerakan) and Democratic Action Party (DAP); although pre-independence, the Straits Chinese also agitated against ketuanan Melayu. The idea of Malay supremacy gained political weight in the 1940s, when the Malays organized to protest the Malayan Union's establishment, from which they later fought for independence. During the 1960s, there was a substantial political effort challenging ketuanan Melayu led by the People's Action Party (PAP) of Singapore — which was a Malaysian state from 1963 to 1965 — and the DAP, after Singapore's secession, however, the Constitutional articles related to ketuanan Melayu were “entrenched" after the racial riots of 13 May 1969, consequent to an election campaign focused on the rights of non-Malay people and the ketuanan Melayu matter. From that arose the "ultras", advocating a one-party government led by UMNO, and increased racist emphasis that the Malays are the "definitive people" of Malaysia — i.e. only a Malay could be a true Malaysian.