How the #BLM is reflected in racism in Malaysia

Leen Ahmed

With more and more cases of police brutality and the deaths happening in custody, one can’t help but wonder, how the #BLM and #ALM still gaining momentum in America has influenced similar activism in Malaysia which is multi-ethnic and multi-racial.

A bitter pill that Malaysians are still learning how to swallow is the fact that racism is still incredibly prevalent in today’s context as well. From a Burmiputera quota instilled into the education sector to companies still hiring individuals based on race, Lexology describes the extent to which a constructive conversation is urgently needed.

According to Dorian Wilde, prominent activist who manages Taylor’s Speakers Corner, a platform that discusses social issues such as race, “Malaysia is so mired in racism that it becomes worth exploring very deeply.”

“Instead of truly dealing with it head-on, it's become something that we have just incorporated into our social fabric.”

There is a certain nuance when it comes to how Malaysians deal with racism attached to the black community in comparison to racism attached to, for example, Indians.

Rights groups call for justice for Ganapathy, a cow milk trader who was murdered in custody this April

“People openly express whatever they feel towards the black community and when it comes to the rest of the minorities, they feel a certain way but pretend like nothing’s wrong,” says Dorian.

He further analyzes this difference by expressing how individuals are emboldened by the inferiority they attribute to another person when they are black, which he considers to be a by-product of colorism.

Dorian explains the link between the #BLM and activism in Malaysia. “Anti blackness is absolutely a real thing that exists here and I think when the BLM movement started, a lot of Indian people, like even myself, felt really vindicated by it.”

Although people do feel incredibly validated by more and more individuals being open about this, the systemic nature of how racism occurs in Malaysia cannot be ignored. And as observed closely by Dorian, the more you root for systemic change, the more the movement stutters and stops.

“With the movement going in America, you can see the change taking place. But what really frustrates activists here is how the movement halts just when it starts to gain momentum,” says Dorian.

Not only does this impinge on the conversation about race but extends to those being actively hurt by police brutality and systemic racism.

“Malaysia has undergone an incredible reversal of human rights in 2020 – all for the worst,” said Phil Robertson deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Hopes for human rights reforms have never risen so fast in Malaysia nor collapsed so quickly.”