This Is Not Pinoy

pinoy-culture:

Rebloggable by Request

I don’t like it, because it still has the same issue of blackfacing (and this isn’t just a modern Western thing). The blackface in the Philippines in which Filipin@’s portray the Aeta’s is degrading and wrong and I hate it when they do this in festivals like Aliwan and Dinagyang. If you are going to celebrate the Aeta’s, Ati’s, etc. you should actually get actual Aeta’s to portray themselves, not Filipin@’s who paint themselves with black paint or soot to portray them and say, oh ya these are the Aeta’s. We couldn’t find any so we decided to dress up and paint ourselves to be them! No, just no.

The only instance where I see it somewhat acceptable (and I will explain why I say somewhat in a bit) is in the Ati-Atihan festival of Panay as that festival originally was meant in honor of the Ati’s as part of an old legend from the people of Panay. The blackpaint of using soot was done to give honor to the Ati’s who sold pieces of land to the early Bornean settlers while in return they shared their food and harvests when the Ati’s had a bad harvest. The blackface in this pre-colonial festival was in tribute to the Ati who they had a friendship with and thanked for selling them pieces of land to settle.

So in this instance I don’t see it as the same as how blackface today is and like the blackface in other festivals like Aliwan and Dinagyang, because in Ati-Atihan, the non-Ati Filipin@’s did this as their thanks toward them along with the harvest festival (it was part of a dance in commemoration of it). Nowadays though that symbolism has pretty much been cast aside seeing as now Ati-Atihan has formed more into a religious Sta. Nino festival than acknowledging the Ati and giving of thanks to them and harvest. That is why I said somewhat because the original symbolism of this festival has been changed from the original so the blackface today in that festival has turned out to be like the blackface of other festivals despite the actual symbolism of why that started in the festival in pre-colonial times in the first place.

Other than that though blackface, especially in tv shows like the current airing of Luna Blanca, is yes dehumanizing, degrading, and racist.

And don’t forget Bela Padilla in FHM’s cover:

Her apology: “Some things are out of control…” she said and further tweeted that “it had nothing to do with racial discrimination… The concept was stepping out of MY inhibitions, MY fears, MY shadows. Not bashing a certain race.”

Translation: It’s all about me. You morenas can shut up.

And how all the articles put quotations around “racist.” She got so much good publicity about this, she gets a feature in Mexico:

“I’m just happy now and I feel so blessed to be given this chance,” 

On Twitter, FHM expressed, “We love you bela. You handled it most beautifully. Mabuhay ka!”

And the stupidity of some journalists:

Journalist Thea Alberto said it was a case of “sensationalizing” color issues, an issue, she noted, that long ago has been resolved and should be left where it belongs — in the past.
 
“I don’t see anything wrong with that FHM cover. Racism and issues in skin color are so last century,”

She goes as far as to tokenize Aeta and other Negrito ethnicities. She can suck my toes for all I care.