Something happened last week that first filled Public Eye with distress, then with a mixture of anger, disgust and hate. An old friend's long-time companion died of a brain tumour, aged 38. She was Hong Kong Chinese. The tragic news hit Public Eye hard. After she was diagnosed, the couple decided to rent a village house in the New Territories for a quiet life. That is when the ugly sickness of Hong Kong ate away at them. Landlords refused to rent because he was South Asian. He even signed an initial lease with one estate agent, but the landlord pulled out after learning of his ethnicity. They eventually found a landlord willing to rent. When Public Eye heard his story, our distress over his companion's passing was replaced by hateful rage. Are these people humans or animals? Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying makes a point of including pictures of so-called ethnic minorities on the covers of his annual policy address to claim Hong Kong is an inclusive society. This is not even window dressing - it's a sick joke. What kind of inclusive society allows kindergartens to shut out ethnic-minority children, banks to deny accounts to South Asians, and landlords to turn away dark-skinned people? Just two days ago, we received an email from a domestic helper who said a management staff member stopped her and others from sitting on a bench in a residential complex where her employer lived. We are a racist society, not an inclusive one. In the six years since anti-racism laws came into effect, the Equal Opportunities Commission has prosecuted just one racism case, which is still languishing in the courts. How much public money has gone into financing this joke of an organisation in the last six years? Maybe commission chairperson Dr York Chow Yat-ngok, who is concerned only about hostility towards mainlanders, would care to tell us.