I think it comes across as a commentary on him being Malaysian because it’s understating things - he very specifically has the persona of a fed up far right american, talking about “this country” and so on, and yet it’s not clear to me whether he’s even been to the US? it’s bizarre. that’s not visible in the passage
I think it’s not so much his Malaysian-ness, but more of a “you don’t even go to this school” thing. I don’t think he has ever been to the US, but he certainly doesn’t seem to mention that he’s in Malaysia, ever, and posts old pictures of the US and says “things were better back then”.
Supposedly he started out online posting Nazi-type stuff (https://i.imgur.com/zYHeFOP.jpeg not sure if legit) then went to a kind of anti-gamer gate wokeish persona, then went right wing again. In that jpeg there are some (alleged) statements by him about being Chinese but not Asian because Asians are “mongrels”.
Malaysia is a really weird place when it comes to ethnicity. It used to be that there was a ton of affirmative action in place to the advantage of people of Malay descent, as opposed to of Chinese or Indian, because they were assumed to be “simple folk” who would be steamrolled by the superior intellects of the latter.
(it could be simply that most Malays were from rural backgrounds without the access to education that the more urban Chinese or Indian population, but AFAIK the legislation was explicitly based on ethnicity)
Anyone with more knowledge about this feel free to chime in. I living in Malaysia as a kid but that was many many years ago.
What’s racist? Seems to be entirely based on Cheong’s decade-plus of well-documented online behavior, not on his race.
I think it comes across as a commentary on him being Malaysian because it’s understating things - he very specifically has the persona of a fed up far right american, talking about “this country” and so on, and yet it’s not clear to me whether he’s even been to the US? it’s bizarre. that’s not visible in the passage
I think it’s not so much his Malaysian-ness, but more of a “you don’t even go to this school” thing. I don’t think he has ever been to the US, but he certainly doesn’t seem to mention that he’s in Malaysia, ever, and posts old pictures of the US and says “things were better back then”.
Supposedly he started out online posting Nazi-type stuff (https://i.imgur.com/zYHeFOP.jpeg not sure if legit) then went to a kind of anti-gamer gate wokeish persona, then went right wing again. In that jpeg there are some (alleged) statements by him about being Chinese but not Asian because Asians are “mongrels”.
Malaysia is a really weird place when it comes to ethnicity. It used to be that there was a ton of affirmative action in place to the advantage of people of Malay descent, as opposed to of Chinese or Indian, because they were assumed to be “simple folk” who would be steamrolled by the superior intellects of the latter.
(it could be simply that most Malays were from rural backgrounds without the access to education that the more urban Chinese or Indian population, but AFAIK the legislation was explicitly based on ethnicity)
Anyone with more knowledge about this feel free to chime in. I living in Malaysia as a kid but that was many many years ago.
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