Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Brandon Elliot, 38, was arrested yesterday for brutally assaulting 65-year-old Filipina American Vilma Kari in midtown Manhattan on Monday. Elliot is to be charged with assault as a hate crime, among other charges. News reports of his arrest highlight the fact that Elliot was out on parole for stabbing his mother to death. Easily lost in the sensationalist reporting is the indictment of NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea of the city's treatment of parolees . “When you’re releasing people from prison and you’re putting them in homeless shelters, you’re asking for trouble,” Shea said on TV. “There’s got to be a safety net and there’s got to be resources for them. It just never should’ve happened.” Before the assault in Hell's Kitchen, Elliot was staying at a nearby hotel, which has been converted by the city into a homeless shelter because of the pandemic. Elliot had been incarcerated since he was...

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here .  On social media Singaporeans are coming out in support of justice for George Floyd and other victims of racial injustice in America. An observer speculated that some of these postings are made to sock it to American finger-wagging around the world. Some to 'prove' that Singaporean 'multiculturalism' and 'pragmatism' offer a better system of governance. However, there are others who, seeing the analogies between American and Singaporean racism, are protesting the murder of George Floyd to draw attention to problems closer to home. "Racism is a global structure," as the writer of Race Tuition Centre reminds us. The same logic that undergirded the enslavement of African Americans "currently enables the exploitation of South Asian migrant labour globally." The link between racial and economic injustice has become even clearer in this pandemic. The virus has affecte...