MALAY▄█▀▀ █▬█ █ ▀█▀

We all know that the Malays are under-performing both academically and professionally. To blame this all on their laziness, lack of competitive spirit or lack of desire is simplistic and helps no one. Everyone starts life at different starting points -- some, through sheer luck, are born into wealthy families and have everything at their feet. Others start out life less fortunately and are born into families who are barely able to support themselves. Who has a better chance at success? The child who can attend tuition, who has the opportunity to travel and see the world, who worries about nothing except his/her studies, who attends independent schools with wonderful facilities or the child who has to work part-time to help his family, who has parents who cannot help him/her in his/her school work, whose parents are too busy working to be around, who attends schools filled with similar students and thus are unable to provide a similar experience as the "elite" schools?

There is a student in one of my classes. Malay of course, whose father has disappeared and whose mother married again and kicked him and his brother out of the house. For some time, they lived with their aunt but she didn't want the responsibility of looking after teenagers and so told them to leave. Now, they sleep wherever they can find shelter and naturally, they need to work to eat. As a result, although he works hard in school, he is often absent. Now you tell me, when he does not succeed in life, whose fault is it? Is it his because he was not working hard enough? Perhaps he should sleep less, eat less so he can work less and come to school instead. Of course the school is trying to help him but he isn't the only student we have like this. There are so many of them with varying levels of problems.

So yes, the Malays are not doing as well as the other races but this is only going to continue if no one is willing to help them and instead conveniently lay the blame at their feet, claiming they are a group of lazy people. It is because people perpetuate the idea that the Malays are lazy that many employers are reluctant to hire them. I've even heard teachers complain that certain schools have too many Malays in them, that's why the school's ranking will never improve. When people already give up on the community and give up on people because they belong to that race, then that's racism. Sure, we don't hurl stones at them or beat them up, but we limit their opportunities in life, refuse to help them and then blame them when they can't seem to rise above their problems.

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