Digitalization of Racism in East Asia
As I entered into an apparel showroom and went to the Men’s section where i was politely greeted by a Chinese saleswoman, who was patiently waiting for the customers to arrive while managing both the job of billing and showcasing the products. After listening to my requirements, she gave me two shirts to try and decide. Having done with my trials, I went to her and gave her the shirt I wanted to buy. As she was filling up the e-forms to process my bill, I saw that there are options made within the system to profile the customer based on race i.e Indian, Chinese, European and Others. I was shocked and asked her about it. With both innocence and ignorance, she replied: “You told you are from India, so I chose Indian”.
In a multi-cultural, globalized world where UK-US-India metrics on consumer goods are to ensure numerical consistency and inter-usability, such race-based profiling for data-mining is both regressive and pathetic.
The 21st Century East Asia with all its glitters and glory also promotes a subtle yet veiled form of racism, that is not questioned openly but celebrated with much innocence in the form of rituals. The actions and behaviours are in perfect tune with each other, conditioning the overall mindset for the promotion of the very evil. All this happening in the big showrooms and the cubicles of high rise malls and offices, that build the socio-economic structure of future Asia.
