COLORISM AND INTERNALIZED ANTI-BLACKNESS IN THE PHILIPPINES

https://www.shopcambio.co/blogs/news/how-is-the-black-lives-matter-movement-resonating-in-the-
philippines

Racism manifests itself in many ways. Some ideas are so deeply ingrained in our
culture and internalized in us as individuals, we don’t notice if we don’t really
look. Anti-Black sentiments and microaggressions against those with darker skin
have always been prevalent in the Philippines.

As a dark-skinned Filipina myself, I have first-hand experience of the preferential

treatment fair-skinned Filipinas receive. Growing up, I was always compared to
my lighter skinned cousins, who were fawned upon for their beauty. In modeling
jobs, I am casted as a contrast to an often Mestiza celebrity or “whiter” models.

Having dark skin and curly hair, I get casted for contrast and “character”.

Mestiza/Mestizo is a term used for fair-skinned Filipinos with European-looking

features. It’s rooted in Spanish colonial Philippines as a label given to those born
of mixed Spanish and Filipino or Indigenous descent. It was a form of racial
segregation used to decide class and social mobility.

While it has been hundreds of years since Spanish colonization, the concept of
value being associated with skin colour lives on.

Skin colour is a story on its own in our pre-colonial history. Aetas, called
“Negritos” (little Black men) by American Anthropologist Otley Beyer, are
believed to be the first inhabitants of our islands.

Aetas are an Indigenous group of people with dark skin, kinky hair, and full
lips.They were also portrayed as primitive, uncivilized, and less skilled. I
remember being taught in school as if there was a biological evolution in the
population in the country: first the Aetas, Indones (light-skinned, tall, slender
bodies, thin high-bridged noses, noted for being “more civilized” than the Aetas),
then the Malays (Brown people) who are the ancestors of most Filipinos today.

Aetas remain in the Philippines to this day, and they are still marginalized.

People use “Aeta” as an insult, as in “mukhang kang Aeta” (meaning, you look
like an Aeta). I have been on the receiving end of these comments, even being
called unggoy (monkey) and bakulaw (gorilla) when mean kids referred to my
dark skin and wider nose.

Through speaking with other morenas (brown-skinned girls), I have learned that
most of them have shared these experiences from childhood all the way into
adulthood. Through movements like #MagandangMorenx, you can see that many
Filipinos all over the world have had to overcome similar struggles.

I learned through other personal encounters, racism is manifested in the “humor”

that some Filipinos have. I’ve heard some jokes go like, “Smile in the dark so that
we’ll be able to see you”, or “If you walk in the dark with a white shirt it will look
like it’s floating”.