THE CICAK.com

Wag the dog

By JASON LIM

Is this dog white or black?

a. White
b. Black
c. White & black
d. Black & White
e. Does it really matter?

There’s a similar scene from the movie Madagascar, where the zebra always wonders if he’s a white zebra with black stripes or a black zebra with white stripes. We laugh at it because it’s such a trivial question, yet, in today’s world, is it really?

It’s hard to believe that even after all this while, all the songs of peace, all the literature on equality and poetry on brotherhood, race is still on the cards.

In the American aftermath of hurricane Katrina, there seems to be a whole cesspool of racial issues being debated. In Malaysia with keris wielding politicians and name-calling parliament members, the race game is as strong as ever. But really, what’s the point?

As students in the field of Marketing Research and consumer demographics learn, breaking up populations (i.e.: discrimination) into various strata enables a marketer to better sell a product.

For instance, a marketer wants to sell pink boxes, and they have a list of 100 addresses to market their product to. By finding out information on the gender of people living in those 100 addresses, they save money on leg work and can just target addresses with female occupants and hit a higher success per visit rate.

But I’m sure many of you already question this bare-basic idea of target marketing. Who says only girls like pink boxes? This concept only works as a generalisation. Instead of a male, female strata, why not fill in a survey with two fields - i.e.: who likes pink colours and who doesn’t, and then proceed? Surely this is a more sensible way of marketing pink boxes? It is, but it also requires more time and effort to pursue. Although, we can expect the end result to always work out better than the previous genderisation method.

And so, it’s easier to understand now, why race is made to be the issue in so many cases, where the root cause of problems are less easy to pursue.

Division by race is an outdated way of understanding populations. Ask any market researcher. While it still has weight, especially in certain locations, it is hardly ever a concrete way of classifying different behaviors and characteristics. In modern times, there are more instances of mixed-race marriages and better social mobility. Does the concept of race really matter anymore? If you have to divide people, isn’t religion and economic strata more accurate fields of discrimination?

Instead of people going on TV to say that President Bush “doesn’t care about black people,” why not hit the nail on the head and say, “President Bush doesn’t care about POOR people.”

When you make a problem a racial agenda, it tends to get stuck in the mire of racial tension and prejudices.

Now think about Malaysia’s problem with under-achieving citizens and see if you can think of a better way of introducing governmental stimuli to give this section of the population a leg up into higher education and corporate equity, without thinking along the lines of race.

Was it that difficult?

Photo by JASON LIM / theCICAK
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JASON LIM is the assistant director of theCICAK.