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Mr Tan Jun Lin a former staff member of Dimensions International College (“Dimensions”), decided to bring incidents of alleged racism that he personally witnessed during his time with the Dimensions to its management.
These incidents allegedly occurred during Mr Tan’s stint with Dimensions in 2022.
Incidents of Racism witnessed by Mr Tan
In particular, Mr Tan highlighted the following four incidents in a letter dated 16 January 2023 to the Chairman and CEO of Dimensions:-
The word “anneh” being used by three staff members repeatedly to refer to Indian students and parents;
One staff member mocking the Indian accent, making fun of how Indians supposedly pronounce the alphabets ‘S’ and ‘M’, and making jokes about ‘head-shaking’;
Two staff members discussing the ‘birth rates’ of the Malay population and how they may ‘displace’ the majority race; and
One staff member referring to an indian worker as a ‘bangala’ in his presence.
In his 2-page letter to the Chairman and CEO, Mr Tan said that the decision to speak up was ‘agonising’ as the same colleagues he named in his letter were ‘consistently kind’ to him.
He explained that he wrote directly to the Chairman and CEO instead of writing to the Human Resources department as Mr Tan was of the view that “every parent would expect that the Head of their children’s school is aware of this racism that occurs on a near-daily basis. I believe that you value racial diversity as much as I do as the diversity in your students itself shows.”
When no reply was forthcoming from Dimensions, Mr Tan sent a further email to Dimensions on 30 January 2023 to seek an update.
Dimensions’ Initial Response to the Allegations
By way of an email dated 2 February 2023, Dimensions essentially told Mr Tan that it concluded that “no issues of racism were involved“.
In a subsequent call between a Director of Dimensions on 7 February 2023, Dimensions, amongst other things “confirmed” with Mr Tan that the incidents he complained of were not racist, and said that “different people have different levels… it is the way that they talk“.
Mr Tan has since uploaded an audio recording of the call and correspondence with Dimensions on YouTube.
https://wakeup.sg/dimensions-racism/
