By Chow Pei Sze (Miss)

I WAS appalled when last Friday's prime-time drama series of MediaCorp's vernacular Channel 8, Daddy At Home, scripted in an ethnic stereotype.

Colleagues of the title character (played by Li Nanxing) joked that they should start calling him "Aminah" as his character's job was reduced to a cleaner.

The nonchalance with which the name of a Malay woman is used interchangeably with the role of a cleaner is insensitive and has encouraged in the popular imagination the equation of Malays to occupations of low income and menial labour.

How could such a glaring comment have passed the stages of checks, if any?

Would the actors and crew on location not have realised this during filming as well?

I am a teacher, and such ethnic stereotyping worries me. Children who watch these shows are exposed to potentially racist sentiments which they could easily replicate in the classroom and in their interactions with children of different races.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.