Race You To The End

Now this is a bit of an eye-opener.

Most anthropologists believe there is actually no such thing as a Malay race. So what does that make us then?

I think it's interesting to bring this up because it certainly crushes any justification for racism - if there was even any - by us 'Malays.' I mean, if we're not ourselves any specific race, or more accurately a mixture of the very different ethnicities we mock, then racism in itself is a self-mockery of our very own muddled and confused identity.

When we speak of the 'Malay' race, we are really just referring to a group of people who speak a similar type of language. That's it. There are no other exclusive similarities inside 'Malays' that even merit for us to have a race of our own.

From what I understand, what we understand to be Malay is really just descendants of the Southern Chinese and to an extent the Africans. The scientific anthropological names for the Malay 'race' itself is very revealing. Malays are classified as Australo-Melanesians and Austronesians, which roughly means we're descended from the Africans and the Chinese.

Any anthropologists are welcome to correct me if my understanding is wrong, but I do believe then that the concept of the 'Malay' race is an illusion.

I guess some people will find this hard to swallow, especially people with a strong sense of racial identity. And I know some people would choose not to believe it.

Honestly though, I don't really care.

The idea of race does not appeal to me. This classification through things like skin-colour, language and place of birth, it doesn't really make sense in the 21st century. People will defend it, because they think it is a part of their identity.

It's not the race that is our identity. It is our culture. The thing is, identity itself is supposed to be an individualistic notion, not a collective description of similar people. National identity is very similar to a very common crime we all know as stereotyping.

I'm hungry.

Signing out

Over and out