BlacksWhoDesign(blackswho.design)

almost 5 years ago from Wes O'Haire, Product Designer at Dropbox. Previously Hudl

  • Abhinav SrivastavaAbhinav Srivastava, almost 5 years ago

    I am an Indian guy who lives and work in Singapore. I understand where this is coming from and as Dorman mentioned 'Let’s stop pretending racial boundaries and prejudices don’t exist'.

    But I feel it's not a great way to approach representation by putting people into boxes based on gender, race or heritage.

    The power to let people be people and to have a healthy mix of diversity lies in the hands of Organisation and government. An example of this is in how Singapore as a multi-racial country solves this problem in its public housing.

    ETHNIC INTEGRATION IN NEIGHBOURHOODS

    Since 1989, the racial quota in each Housing and Development Board (HDB) block and estate has been controlled to broadly reflect Singapore’s racial proportion under the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP).

    The objective is two-fold: To prevent any particular race from congregating in a location giving rise to “enclaves”; and to give residents more opportunities to interact with those from other races as they “go about their daily lives”, said Dr Puthucheary, who is also Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information, and Education.

    The policy has largely met its aim, with every neighbourhood here a microcosm of society at large. Not only have residents of all races formed strong neighbourly ties, they have largely accommodated each other’s practices and customs, such as the burning of incense or the holding of wedding celebrations.

    There are other downsides of this but it's a feeling of equality that prevails, there's more understanding and respect for other cultures and habits.

    I know its not straightforward or obvious solutions to this but I am glad people are talking about it.

    1 point