Then my mind started to wander: what about those community posters, say, in Singapore? Why is it that they always have 2 Chinese, 1 Malay and 1 Indian smiling and looking happy for no particular reason? Let's assess this.
The Chinese make up 76.4% of the population in Singapore. In other words, if the people posing for the poster were randomly chosen*, there was only a 19.5% chance that they could have picked exactly 2 Chinese dudes! And much lesser than that to have exactly 2 Chinese and 2 different minorities. Also, there's 76.2% chance that a racially-unbiased poster should display either 3 or 4 Chinese people (and a greater likelihood that none of them are smiling and looking happy to begin with)!
*Note: This is called a binomial distribution.
So if you are not Chinese, and you see your race represented in the poster, you shouldn't be thinking: OK, I'm being represented here. Instead, you should be thinking: No wait... there's some ****ing a**hole out there who made this poster who's been keeping extra conscious that I'm a minority!
But I don't think it's right to put up a poster that reflects the population's demographics to strict statistical fit either. What about the poor Africans, Japanese etc.? You're being unfair towards them if you included the other minorities hoping to convince these that they're being represented.
I offer two solutions, namely the diffusion of guilt and fairness by equal exclusion.
The diffusion of guilt method Do you know that a blank is sometimes distributed within a firing squad? The principle behind this is that the executioners will each have the comfort that they might be the one given the blank cartridge, and thereby not guilty of killing another person. How about, we first introduce 3 Chinese people in the poster, to suggest unbiased statistical sampling, then have the 4th person in the poster being totally mosaic-ed/censored? Then minorities like me** can all take comfort in possibly being represented as the 4th person!
**Note: See, no one should feel offended from my views if they don't know what's my race. ('Ephedyn' originates from Sindarin, which is difficult to learn but a very beautiful language.)
My friend, Samuel brought up another problem: you can't have ANY of them wearing a suit while the rest are in their ethnic costumes. (See 1:39 below) This carries a racist message too, OK? So you better have one of the persons wearing his/her vanilla suit and all censored up. Ex hypothesi, we can all take the consolation that "he or she might be dressed poorer than me".
Fairness by equal exclusion Ever shared a plate of food, say, 4 slices of garlic bread, among 3 persons? And everyone tries to prompt the other two to take the last slice? Then the last slice gets left alone for a while - until it nearly becomes a pressing matter as the waitress is about to remove the plates for the entrées? This is what I mean by "fairness by equal exclusion". So... how about we put 4 extreme minorities up there? I don't think anyone in Singapore will complain if you put up a poster with 4 Mexicans, asking for people to sign on the army; or 4 Korean families promoting the National Day Parade. Or even 4 mosaic aliens - that would be best!
Lastly, I don't think there's anything with a particular race or nationality being prominent, e.g. women's tennis, marathon races, swimming, soccer, cricket, baseball etc. They even keep statistics of medals by nationality which suggest huge leads held by certain nationalities. I, for one, will hate it if they insisted that some entries to Grand Slams/ATP events were reserved for Asians simply for the sake of being consistent with the actual racial distribution of the world population (a similar problem also manifests as 'affirmative action' in the US college admissions process). I mean, let's face it, most (and the average) Asians are shorter and weigh less than their Caucasian counterparts; and we could say that it so happens that Asian countries have less developed sporting frameworks for professional tennis players; or perhaps even suggest that this has some correlation to Asian culture*** towards tennis. There's nothing wrong with it: I want to watch the very best compete against each other, I want them to complete by merit.
***Note: Culture definitely plays a role. The piano has been associated with Continental culture for as long as it's been around, but we're seeing an increase in Asian presence here, e.g. in the International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition.
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