It is already quite impossible to stop the spreading ailment of Racism although it is never too late to create a viable solution to start over again. I would agree well with Manuel L. Quezon Jr. for stating that “the importance of the Filipino version of racism lies in this -it weakens the bond uniting Philippine society into a cohesive whole.”
Most of the time, we hastily point out racist individuals by the way they speak of other races and consider themselves superior, and yet we couldn’t clearly understand how we’ve belittle ourselves throughout the years. I for one am guilty of considering myself substandard compare to the white men, unaware when and how it started, I’m rather precise it underwent with how my parents have brought me up learning English first before our native language.
This sickness had contaminated our country throughout the centuries, the worst case that continually subsists is that some of us take pleasure on being a “half-blood Filipino” may it be literally or metaphorically, immensely patronizing the arts and culture of other countries because we consider our own as “baduy”. Being born on the recent generation, I have experienced confusion in relation with our country’s supposed culture and beliefs, I was open to the idea that anything Filipino is not good or rather middling, but when I started studying Philippine Arts, I gradually realized the disease I’ve been diagnosed with is slowly being taken care of by the conviction that there is hope for us Filipinos to give up the thought of inferiority, and consider ourselves worthy of a good standing ovation, for the change in the environment starts in the change of one’s self.
Manuel L. Quezon Jr. wrote, “When we read of racial disturbances in other lands, we are justly indignant, we are being more than a little absurd when we have feelings of self-righteousness as a result. It is wicked and stupid enough for one people to look down on another, it is more stupid for a people to look down on it itself, to do both.”
Well if we consider ourselves “inferior” to the white men, and yet we carry-on following their tail of legacy that keeps us rather confident, what can be a better word for pessimistic? Some of us liked the idea that buying and patronizing alien goods will give us a higher credibility and sense of conceit for we have stepped up from the grounds of being a Filipino and its filthy soils, as one sees it. What are we then? I think we have to start by being ourselves, by loving ourselves, by not taking our nation for granted, with these, gradually we can see ourselves in a whole different spectrum.
Another idea that has gotten my attention was how Manuel L. Quezon Jr. have imposed the question; “From the standpoint of beauty, what do we consider a handsome man or a beautiful woman?” It has always been an issue particularly on our popular culture realm of identifying what is beautiful and what is not. He said that fair-skinned mestizos or mestizas are often considered beautiful compare to being dark-skinned which is either ugly or not enough to be perceived as beautiful. Which is still true these days, every day as we turn the television on, we are bombarded with innumerable commercials candidly convincing us that “white is beautiful”, or white is better. In this very simple matter we have already proven so much that being “morena” is not at all attractive, even if we’ve otherwise believed that beauty is subjective, at the back of our heads we have already set standards to be well thought-out. This colonial mentality have imposed unto us that the physical characteristics of a person is fairly significant in line with the importance of first impressions particularly when finding a job, as Manuel L. Quezon Jr. puts it; “which brings us to a peculiar racial in economic-social observation: features and coloring are often connected with social and economic position and possibilities”.
Lastly is his idea of racism in the Philippines, and how it can be cured; “It is time we eliminated it by educating in the minds of our people and changing their attitudes, not by adopting a pugnacious or haughty spirit, which would only be an inverted complex and would leave that complex basically untouched, but by making them -all of us- realize the truth that we are all Filipinos, that as a people we have no inborn inferiority, that we have the same inborn potentialities as other people, that what we are and what we shall become depends under God, on what we make of ourselves.” As I have always thought of, it is essential that we furnish importance to our history and to our present state, which I think is already so hard for most of us. Our history is full of heroic acts by our ancestors, how they’ve fought for our freedom and autonomy amidst prejudiced, inhumane and disruptive governments; it is time we set our eyes in the brave sight of our past and future heroes, to fight for our homeland, to give significance to what we really are. If we continue to seek ourselves in the eyes of other people or race, we fail to recognize the beauty that we already have.
Basing our perception on being the substandard compare to the white men is very detrimental and yet many of us are blindly taking most of the delight from it. With Manuel’s idea of us being cynical and with his idea of the kind of solution for this so-called scheme of mental colonialism which is to make us Filipinos realize the truth that we are, by fact, are Filipinos and that we don’t have inborn inferiority, is somewhat difficult to be assimilated, unless we have the ground rule to imprison those who would agree that white men have better lives than ours. Throughout the years we have been taught in our history classes how far we’ve come from being colonized by one country to another, most of them considered us mediocre and even more or less idiotic, and unfortunately until now, most of us are still impeccably colonized on our mental states, the only difference is that we barely fight against it and more often than not we declare victory once able to achieve an impression that we are more than Filipinos.
I would agree very much with Manuel saying that to realize our inborn potentiality rather than inferiority is the start of a racist-free vision of our country, but how can it be done if most of us are already disgusted by the thought that we are Filipinos, furthermore his idea of Filipino’s discernment of beauty can also be related to the thought that it would take a higher road to eventually expunge this mentality, thus I find it quite unattainable because of the damage that it costs us all is overwhelmingly progressing. From the small matters of the frame of mind that one often have of a person’s physical features is already a problem to be considered because there are more to know than what meets the eye, and certainly the physical attributes of a person does not entirely define his or her credentials and potentials, I’m sure even science would agree, and hitherto one will always try to adhere with the norms of society.
The question will always linger in us all; who are we, Filipinos? it will flow upon generation to generation, to the future Filipinos, some will focus more on the future advancement of being more than a Filipino, being able to escape the realm that they thought was not at all a place for them to uphold their visions and missions, and yet hopefully some of them will look back to their past, realize who they are, acknowledge it, bring it with them, create another heroic history and thank the Lord for being a true-blooded Filipino.
4 comments:
that's quite a concept u examine in this report. that by seeing oneself as inferior vis a vis another race, one is actually a racist. never heard of it put that way, but it's an intriguing idea.
when we were young, i remember we used to discourage our youngest sister from watching filipino TV shows and movies, because that's what our maids used to watch. it was as if by watching such shows she was somehow demeaning herself. haha.
and of course, everything "stateside" was considered better, from chocolates, to candies and fruits, to shoes, to whatever.
perhaps the culprit in this case was the long legacy of colonialism in our country, followed by what amounts to cultural "imperialism", where hollywood movie celebrities and american singers are as popular, or even more popular than local artists. finally, there is a notion that filipinos really had no cultural identity before the coming of the spanish, and all these contribute to a lingering sense of national inferiority, which then trickles down to a sense of personal inferiority. i know the chinese (who were never colonized and have a very long cultural history) for one don't have the same strong feelings of national inferiority as we do. in fact, they actually have a somewhat superior attitude towards other races and cultures, and especially nowadays many are contemptuous of the political and economic (in)competency of america and europe.
one thing. i think the notion that people who are fairer-skinned are "better" is not really race-based, or at least did not start out that way. many cultures, including the chinese in the early centuries before countries were in full contact, also had this idea. i think this was more a reflection of the idea that people who were upper class did not work the fields, and thus were not darkened by the sun. this is kinda ironic nowadays, when many fair skinned people try to become much darker via suntans.
another thing. ur report mentions possible solutions to the problem, n unfortunately they r somewhat vague. but from trends going on in pinas, i think there is some hope, albeit it will take a LONG time and will not solely depend on anything the philippines itself can do, but will also depend on changes occurring at the macro-level in asia and the world.
see, i remember when i was a kid, all the foreign shows (other than animated cartoons) were from america, and thus people grew up adoring only american celebrities. imagine my surprise when after being away from the pinas for awhile, i visited in 2006 and found out the majority of foreign shows on TV were now from south korea and surrounding asian countries (and i think from a few spanish countries as well). what a change! now filipinos were flocking to shows that may not have darker skinned pinoys in them, but at least they featured people who looked kinda like us. i'd say that's some progress ;-)
also, the rise of first japan, and now china (which is fated to become the economically largest nation in the world) has instilled in east asians (and perhaps even pinoys! lol) the growing notion that asia is again rising to the top position in world affairs, much as it was before the industrial revolution in the late 1700s/1800s. perhaps this will give renewed confidence to pinoys, that because fellow asians could get to such heights, then perhaps it's possible for us to aspire to such dreams too ;-)
oh, thanks again for a good read.
I understand your scope of knowledge when it comes to Racism. This is actually just a paper I did for my P.I. 100 Class or Rizal, whatever.
I was focused on writing a paper related solely on this article:
http://www.quezon.ph/familyinfo/philippine-racism/
Deeply focused on Philippine Racism so I am not really talking about Racism in general. Thanks though.
salamat sa link, jade, binasa ko. sabi ko na nga ok ang report mong iyan, at interesting pa :-)
para bang dated na ang artikulo ni quezon, di na yata relevant ang sinasabi diyan sa society ngayon.
but it'll be interesting to do some experiments and surveys to test this (maybe someone already did this, but it would make an interesting project)
one survey might involve assembling lists of all the top models in the pinas, then ranking them according to their skin tones. the hypothesis would be that there is a tendency for top models to be fair skinned (mestiza/mestizo). similar surveys of actors, and other celebrities might add to this.
an experiment might also be designed where experimental subjects (who are never told what the point of the experiment is) are shown various pictures of people and asked to rate the people based on their attractiveness, plus select what occupation or status the people in the image might have just based on their looks. the hypothesis would again be that people would tend to rank mestizas/mestizo higher in attractiveness and would assign them higher paying and higher ranking jobs and societal status.
again, very interesting, thanks jade.
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