An essay on Philippines Racism and the norm of thinking that racists have. Includes examples of typical Filipino racism and stereotyping.

Essay by an2nyA, January 2004

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Philippine Racism

In a famous trial in Manila about Neil Puache, convicted of rape, exclaimed: "You're all racists and you don't even know it!" This topic may be quite controversial but I have enough evidences to back up my opinions. Racism refers to any theory or doctrine stating that inherited physical characteristics such as skin color, facial features, hair texture, and the like determine behavior patterns, personality traits and intellectual abilities. They do not know that, according to the values' standards, that the actions of man define what values they have instead of how they look because through these values, one can know that a person is acting in a proper or improper way. In practice, racism takes the form of a claim that some human races are superior to others.

Did you know that the term "Mangyan", the name of the indigenous peoples in Mindoro comes from the Tagalog phrase: "mangmang iyan" meaning "that person is stupid"? Why would people who have been oppressed by whites want to act like them? Because the oppression was effective in instilling the belief that whites are better than Filipinos.

Instead of responding to this in an aggressive mood, Filipinos took the belief as something true. That's why Filipinos are really conscious about their skin color.

How about this: did you know that our country is the world's capital of whitening products? Yes, it's a fact. Filipinos seem to think that with lighter skin, one can climb the social ladder. Haven't you noticed that Filipinos respond to sunlight the same way Clark Kent does to kryptonite?

And this: did you know that only two dark-skinned Filipinas managed to get the title of Binibining Pilipinas Universe? This is another visible practice of racism in the Philippines. It might be coincidental if there were ten...