Opinion | Calling out racism wherever it is found is everyone’s obligation

I have spent the past 3½ years as a student in Britain. I’ve been fortunate to have had an incredibly insightful experience at Oxford, and there are countless benefits to studying abroad for both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese students: from cultural enrichment to the exceptional academic faculty, from the exposure to new ideas to expansive networks.

That being said, I’ve also found myself the subject of racialised and racist treatment – often implicit and veiled, at times explicit. I recall being told, after a particularly impassioned speech of mine at the Oxford Union on Churchill, that I ought to “shut up and be grateful that the British came to save me from the barbaric Chinese”. Then there is the tendency of shop assistants at supermarkets to enter into broken English when they see me dragging my basket of noodles and Chinese goods to the counter; or the casual 180-degree switch in attitude that bus drivers and waiters espouse towards you after serving a white customer. Obviously, there is no concrete sign that such belligerence was enacted out of racism, or even racialised attitudes. You may of course see my descriptions as the mere exaggerations of a paranoid student.

Yet perhaps you would see things differently if you were in my shoes – or, indeed, the shoes of the thousands of Chinese students who study abroad. A recent email from the University of Liverpool’s student welfare office found it appropriate to add that “[…] our Chinese students are usually unfamiliar with the word ‘cheating’ in English, and we therefore provided this translation”. There is no way of ascertaining if the office was being racist – indeed, cynics who worry about the encroachment of PC culture, or about “snowflakes” imagining racism, will not be assuaged by the fact that racism tends to manifest itself most potently through subconscious biases. Yet I would posit that to the point individuals feel excluded socially, economically and politically, racism is well and truly present.

British university apologises to Chinese students for cheating warning

Anti-Chinese racism is of notable concern. Many Chinese students report becoming increasingly nationalistic and anti-West after returning from overseas studies in response to the day-to-day microaggressions and otherising they experienced. Others find themselves increasingly disillusioned with the prospects of overseas study, thus depriving themselves of opportunities to access broader knowledge and liberal ideals, and the universities they would have attended of aspiring and talented students. Moreover, racism triggers a wider antagonism, which is not conducive towards greater synergy between Chinese and Western civil societies.

There is a curiously baffling trope among some Hongkongers that the racism confronting Chinese students is specific to those from the mainland, and that the special identity of being from Hong Kong renders one exempt. As such, perhaps anti-Chinese racism is no reason for us, as Hongkongers, to be worried. But racism knows no nuance – it does not seek to legitimise itself through rationing among certain groups or cultures. We should not seek to justify it by deceiving ourselves into thinking it applies solely to our mainland compatriots.

So what can be done? For overseas universities and governments, we may count on them to push for greater racial awareness and equality training in their curricula. Or we can start with ourselves. If you happen to be a student who studies abroad and sees racism – call out the individuals involved, challenge the system that leaves both perpetrators and victims of racism entrapped, raise greater awareness about the issue. At home, we must also start taking the problems of our racism towards foreign or minority students seriously. We cannot expect others to move away from racism when we ourselves refuse to shun the subconscious biases and bigotry that percolate our civil discourse.

May we strive towards a future where race no longer divides, but instead unites. Until then, in solidarity we stand.

Brian Y.S. Wong is a Master of Philosophy student of politics (political theory) at Wolfson College, Oxford