#MigrantWorkersMatter Hashtag Created As Some People Complained New Dorms Are too Close to Residential Areas

On 1 Jun, it was announced that 11 more dormitories will be built by 2022.

This, Minister of National Development Lawrence Wong says, will “reduce the density of dormitories”.

Simply put, instead of squeezing 14 migrant workers into a room, it could be 7.

Pretty nice, right?

Except people started to complain.

“Too Close To Residential Areas”

Facebook user, Shawn Lim, took to Facebook to give his own opinion about what he’s seeing from the comments section.

He said that Singaporeans can be, and should be, better when it comes to racism.

While #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter are important, he suggests that we take a good look at our own racism first.

He pointed out that after the government announced plans to build more dormitories, Singaporeans started putting out “disgusting comments”.

Here are the few he had pointed out:

Some felt that to be fair, these dorms should be built near to the rich people too, seemingly implying that having dormitories (and migrant workers, by extension) nearby will lower the “class” of the area.

Others asked about compensation:

One immediately thought of the migrant workers as “dangerous”:

While another felt that they wouldn’t be able to “blend” into the culture:

Being kind and being trusting are two different matters:

Sure, don’t make us foot the bill:

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Our Migrant Workers Deserve Respect

These migrant workers, he said, built the homes that “you so comfortably live in and type these racist comments from”.

They built the schools “that I am sure did not educate you to string these racist words together.”

They do the work that Singaporeans deemed are too “demeaning”.

Yet despite all that, they are still rejected.

Don’t just clap for frontline workers, he urged, these #MigrantWorkersMatter too.

You can view his full Facebook post below:

Are Singaporeans Hypocrites?

Now, after reading these comments, you might’ve felt that Singaporeans are hypocrites douchebags.

When we were lambasted over the treatment of our migrant workers, Singaporeans turned up to say how thankful they are to have these migrant workers here and flamed dormitories who were caught abusing workers online.

Yet when it comes to their own territories, they started saying:

Do all Singaporeans believe in this? I don’t think so.

How about a majority? I doubt that too.

Because you see, we’ve all heard about the phenomenon of a “Silent majority“.

A phenomenon where a majority of people who don’t disagree keep quiet (making it seem like they’re not there) while the minority who opposes make a lot of noise (making it look like a lot of people feel this way).

Of course, using the hashtag #MigrantWorkersMatter can help balance things up a bit online too.