A video of a Singaporean Chinese man lambasting an Indian man for dating a Chinese lady has gone viral.
The exchange features an incredulous Dave Parkash talking to a man wearing a Singapore shirt. The man makes a host of comments focusing on Parkash and his girlfriend.
Parkash's girlfriend, who filmed the encounter, is half-Chinese and half-Thai, Parkash himself is half-Indian and half-Filipino.
Speaking to Mothership, Parkash said the man approached the couple while they were walking towards their car.
"My girlfriend and I were walking towards our car when this man approached me and said such a disgrace a Chinese girl and an Indian man are together. I was stunned and asked him if he referred to us that's when he said yes. right then I told my girlfriend to start recording as proof of evidence."
The incident took place on June 5 at around 8pm, near the junction of Wheelock Place and The Far East Shopping Centre.
During the course of the video, the man makes a series of claims including how interracial marriage is racist, asking them whether their parents would be proud, and that Indian men are "preying" on Chinese girls.
The man then asked if their parents were happy about the arrangement. Later on in the exchange, he would claim Parkash's parents were "disgraced" by his dating choice.
Parkash responded by saying he had crossed the line.
The man also said Parkash's girlfriend was disgracing him (the man).
He says that it is racist that the "Indian prey on Chinese girls".
When Parkash incredulously repeated the choice of word "prey", the man doubled down, claiming it is predatory.
He also said "the Chinese" are not happy with it.
The man then went on a tangent involving Barack Obama and the United States after Parkash expressed his disbelief at the encounter.
The man who walks off and comes back once, eventually walks away, leaving Parkash and his girlfriend to deal with the unreal exchange.
He talks about how he would like to say racism doesn't exist in Singapore when asked, but points to this incident and notes the intense irony of someone wearing a Singapore polo shirt while spouting off the aforementioned points.
He urged everyone to be who they want to be and love who they want to love, asking viewers not to bother with people like the polo-shirt man, who he says is "rotten".
Here is what he said in his post.
"My name is Dave Parkash. I am a Singaporean. Today i feel embarrassed, humiliated and hurt by how i was treated by another fellow Singaporean.
My girlfriend and I was confronted by a man who told us that we should only be dating with people of our own race. He called himself a racist and even blamed us for being racist just because my gf and I are from different races.
He humiliated us in public by shaming both her and I like as though we did something wrong. I come from a mixed race background and so is my gf. We both are mixed race but we are proud to be Singaporeans.
I feel we shouldn't be publicly shamed just because of our skin colour. Love is love. Love has no race love has no religion. You and I should be able to love whoever we wanna love.
Lets not become like this man in the video. To this man who may end up watching this, I hope you learn to stop being a racist and let us all live in harmony. Last but not least life's too short, LET US SPREAD LOVE AND NOT HATE AND MAY THIS MESSAGE EDUCATE. #STOPRACISM #Sharethisvideo #SGUnited"
You can watch the entire exchange here.
Parkash also said that while they were coping okay after the incident, they definitely "feel hurt as we are humans and we have feelings too".They also wanted to create awareness of such "saddening situations" and that "we all bleed the same colour and breathe the same air and we shouldn't let our skin colour determine otherwise".
Minister for Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam also weighed in on the video.
Image from Parkash's FB
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