Why race exclusion from IC is merely treating the symptom

Kelvin Teo

As far back as 2007, someone suggested to our Foreign Minister Mr George Yeo, that race should be removed from our ICs. It was also noted that Singapore is currently one of the few countries with race on our ICs. And various arguements were offered for the removal of race from our ICs, the most important one being a deterrent against discrimination. The other reason is that such a move will symbolically unite us as Singaporeans, that our pink ICs will show us as SINGAPOREANS one and whole without the racial classification. There is even currently a facebook page by local activists calling for the removal of race from our ICs.

How would the removal of race from our ICs work in combating racism? It is not so much of preventing discrimination during personal contact situations since one can easily glean his counterpart’s race from a short interaction between the two. The raison d’etre behind race removal is to prevent administrative discrimination. For instance, we may have to provide photo copies of our ICs for job applications or to be admitted into an institution of any ostensible sort. The administrator in charge of selection or admission would be able to view the copies of ICs. If the ICs were devoid of any race, racial bias or discrimination will potentially (note the use of the word ‘potentially’) not be factored into the equation for the admission or selection process. Thus, removal of race from our IC would reduce the likelihood of administrative racial biasness and discrimination in situations where there is negligible personal contact.

Reservations have been raised about the viability of the removal of race from our ICs. One of them is the fact that it would be quite easy to tell a person’s race from his name, so even with the race removed, critics have questioned how effective would that be in combating racial bias or discrimination. The second reservation I have seen written elsewhere is that removal of racial information may ironically lead to the relegation of racial issues to the backburner, which basically casts an ignorant eye to the existence of racial issues. The third reservation, which is not really discussed in the mainstream, albeit an important and potentially-life threatening reason is a medical one. The issue is that not all of our bodies are able to process drugs the same way. Different races have differing abilities to process the drugs, and eliminate them from the body (when drugs are given, the body constantly eliminate them). This affects the prescription of the drug doses. When members of a racial group possess bodily mechanisms that eliminate a drug quickly, we might give them a higher dose, whereas for another racial group, they tend to eliminate the drug slowly, and hence they get lower doses.

It is simplistic to approach the racial issue with the mere notion of discrimination. Racial discrimination, synonymous with racism, has negative connotations, and can be summarised as an entrenched or circumstantial-based (from bad experiences) dislike for members of another racial group (s). Whilst that exists, the other aspect of racial relations cannot be ignored – favouritism. Allow me to give an instance of favouritism, except that this time, it is a religious one. During my stay my overseas, when I had to switch residences, I needed to engage moving services. Thus, a good friend of ours decided to assist us in looking for potential moving services. He finally decided on one, and we happily moved to our new home with his recommended moving services. So I asked our good friend, what made him recommend this moving service. And his reply? Well, he heard about the advertisement of the company that provides moving services in a religious radio channel. The company’s owner belongs to the same religion as him, thus, that was what swayed him to recommend the company’s services to us. Bear in mind, this good friend of ours is a friendly chap – in his words, he would be happy to share a table enjoying a saturday night social drinking session with mates from other religious groups, even to the extent of treating them to a drink. In short, he doesn’t discriminate (in the negative sense) against other religions, but rather the reason for his selection of the moving company arose from favouritism.

Hence, the removal of race from the IC is not meant to address racial discrimination only, but also favouritism. It could be that administrators in charge of admission or selection of candidates weren’t racists, they were fine with mates from other racial groups, but they could be practising favouritism towards a certain racial group. Thus, eliminating the race part of the equation would force them to make comparisons amongst candidates based on truly meritocratic indicators.

How then can we address the issue of further discrimination of race from the basis of name alone, since we can easily tell a person’s race from his name? And also what happens if one day, an unconscious chap presents to the emergency department of the hospital needing a particular medicine but we don’t know what dose to give him since he doesn’t have his racial group on his IC. There is a possible solution, that coming from my experiences of the healthcare system in Australia. In the ward of a metropolitan hospital on every patient bed, is a board that shows the name he wishes to be addressed as. Such could be a nickname. For instance, we had a patient who was humongous and weighs 180 kg. And his nickname – Tiny. Thus, Tiny was known as Tiny to visitors to his ward. However, to his healthcare team, they had all his particulars, and only members of the healthcare team had access to such information. Needless to say, healthcare professionals and members of the Allied Health team are duty-bound to maintain patient confidentiality.

Thus, how can we incorporate the lessons from other countries to implement a race-less ID system? We can have an ID which only shows the name that the person wishes to be addressed as; for instance, a Malay male can elect to call himself Eddy, or a chinese with a chinese name can elect to call himself Joe. This ID would have no racial information, and only the social security number or NRIC number. At the government administrative level, provisions can be made to allow certain important ministries to access the full information from the national registry from the social security number, including race of the individual, and at the same time, the same provisions bar other less important ministries from accessing the individual’s race. We want our healthcare establishment to be able to access racial data so that when the individual presents to the hospital, we know how much drugs to give him, or we know what disease he is likely to suffer from since some diseases are more prevalent in certain racial groups. Basically, when we need to know the person’s race for his well-being and welfare, especially within a crucial government ministry, then only that ministry can access such information. In other ministries that preside over less crucial aspects of Singaporeans’ lives and where knowing the individual’s race is not crucial, the access to racial information for such a ministry can be restricted. The idea of restricting access of non-crucial government ministries should not be read in a way that suggests the occurence of racial biasness in our government administrative services or the fact that they are on the slippery slope to such practices, in fact, it is definitely not the case; but rather the fact that if we are going in the direction towards eliminating race in administrative processes both private and public, changes should be rung from the top to bottom, so we go all the way. With an ID card bearing only the person’s nickname or the name he wishes to be addressed as and his NRIC, and the added fact that only crucial government ministries can access his racial information, we are moving towards moving elimination of the race factor in administrative processes both private and public.

How about the reservation that eliminating race from our ICs would lead to the ignorance of racial issues? The Economist ran an article on the issue with a case study on France, where there is a law forbidding the collection of statistical data referring to racial or ethnic origins. Therein lies the problems that it is not possible to ascertain how the various ethnic groups are faring. And to get around the laws, social scientists used names as proxies for ethnicities. If we go the path of eliminating racial information from our IDs, will we end up like France? In the first place, the situation in France, is uniquely French – it has laws banning collection of racial or ethnic-based data. Such has never been an issue in Singapore – there is no such law. In my experiences running research-based surveys in Singapore, and even health-related interviews in Australia, there wasn’t any barrier to collecting racial information from participants. If there are no legal barriers, the only ostensible barrier is from the respondent himself, whether he is forthcoming about revealing his race. From my experience, if the assurance is provided to respondents in such surveys that whatever information he gives is for research purposes, kept private and not circulated to anyone else other than the ones doing the study (which is supposed to be the correct way anyway), they will usually be forthcoming with not only race, but with more private information that extends beyond it.

Much has been discussed about race exclusion from IC in preventing administrative discrimination or favouritism of race, but then again, we as Human beings are social creatures – we intermingle with each other, different racial groups intermingle in the work place, social gatherings and even in our military. Race exclusion from our IC can only do this much. Mr Yeo in a reply to his audience asserted that the removal of race from the IC will not see the end of racial stereotypes. Instead, the solution lies in fostering social norms that frown on racial prejudices. The Foreign Minister is right. Racial bias is like a cancerous mass, and in cases of cancer, sometimes it can be painful, and we give pain relief. Cancer pain is a common complaint and a symptom of cancer, and pain relief only treats the symptoms. And that is what race removal from IC achieves. The solution that Mr Yeo proposes about fostering norms that frown on racial prejudices is one on the other hand that is equivalent to the curative treatment of cancer – chemotherapy that kills off the cancer cells. This is not to say that treatment of symptoms is no less important than chemotherapy, both are important and contribute to the patient’s welfare. Hence, in tackling the issue of racial bias, control of symptoms through race exclusion is as equally important as chemotherapy. And eliminating racial favouritism is challenging – one may not discriminate against another racial group, he can be fine and dandy enjoying the company of mates from other races at the dinner table, but that doesn’t mean he does not practise favouritism towards a particular racial group. After all, it is part of human nature to express a favourite preference towards something.

Writer’s note: The writer would like to express his deepest appreciation to The Kent Ridge Common’s editor Koh Choon Hwee for bringing to his attention The Economist’s report on the racial issue in France in her article entitled “Why do you want to remove Race from your IC?”