As i told him, not that i'm anti-patriotic but really, exagge naman yung ibang tao. Don't get me wrong, what the writer/s, director, actor, etc did was WRONG, i cannot stress that enough. Not because it's a slur against my country in particular, but it's a slur, period. Kahit pa anong bansa ang binanggit nila dun, mali pa rin sya. It's a clear case of discrimination. It would have been easier to swallow if they did not mention any specific location, like maybe just say a graduate from a medical school in a third world country or something. But i mean, c'mon, filing a $500 mil suit? I'm all for them apologizing. Instead of asking that much money, why not just ask for a live apology from all the people involved or ask them to prohibit the show from being shown or even erase the whole episode and make one where a Filipino doctor makes Ms. Hatcher's character eat her words or ban her for life in the Pinas and all her shows? Or demand for all of those. Cause what's the $500 mil for? Will it be used to pay for the outstanding debts of the country? Uhh i don't think so. And may i just be the devil's advocate here? Bakit sa palagay nyo, mga mahal kong kababayan, naisip nilang gamitin ang bansa natin? Hindi ba kagagawan rin nating lahat kung bakit ang pangit ng imahen natin sa buong mundo? Kahit si Manny Pacquiao eh hindi kayang baguhin ang pangit na pangalan ng bansa natin. Eh kung tayo nga dito nag didiscriminate against other people. May tatalo pa ba dun sa ginawa ni Senador Miriam Defensor-Santiago nung pinagbintanggan nyang ang mga Chinese daw ang nag-imbento ng korupsyon? At the halls of the Senate no less. Nakakahiya. "Eh si Miriam lang naman yun eh, masanay ka na sa kanya." Mashado na ata tayong manhid. At tingnan nyo na lang ang reaksyon ng Chinese community. Did they sue us for a gazillion dollars? They satisfied themselves with an apology. Sa totoo lang, masyadong defensive ang kinalabasan natin.
I don't watch that show, not my cup of tea. But i saw the clip on a news channel, same as everybody did. Then looked it up on youtube.
Oh and yeah, pwede pakiusap lang dun sa mga politikong nagbigay ng opinion nila, Teri Hatcher po ang pangalan niya. Hindi Teri Thatcher. Next time please make sure that you got the name correct. I felt disgusted but at the same time died laughing out loud. Naki-sawsaw pa kasi...
******
Reposted from Ajeet's blog, with his permission. Salamat Ajeet.
Motherfuck! Teri said what?!
"Oh no she di'in'!"
Unless you've been living under a rock, then you know that the latest bit of racism that has everyone in a pseudo-nationalistic uproar is Teri Hatcher bad-mouthing Filipino doctors on an episode of Desperate Housewives.
But before we call for the castration/mutilation of the man/woman who wrote that line, let's take a good, hard look at our own penchant for intolerance. I'm not saying it wasn't wrong, because it was, and I have a lot of former classmates studying medicine, but we're not exactly the most politically-correct race around eh?
Being half-Indian in this country, sometimes I feel like a racial slur waiting to happen. One of my earliest memories after moving back to the Philippines, and one of the first statements I understood as I was learning Tagalog, was swimming in a public pool at around age 8 and seeing a girl about my age drag her two brothers away from me while saying, in a voice dripping with revulsion, "'Wag tayo lalapit d'yan, mga bumbay 'yan, ang baho-baho." Sweet ano? I guess it's never too early to inculcate racism in your little girl.
I can't remember how many times I've been asked if my parents are 5-6, if they sell arinola and payong, why I don't have a scooter, why all Indians smell bad, etc. The worst is when people tell me I'm fair or handsome, then say, "Buti na lang, you don't look like other Indians." Why thank you for managing to simultaneously complement me while insulting the more than one billion other people of my race. It takes a very skilled asshole to pull off something like that.
One time, a nanny pointed at my dad while trying to shush her young charge, stating that if he didn't stop crying, "Papakuha kita sa bumbay." My dad turned around and asked her what she would do if he really took her kid. Naturally, the yaya was dumbstruck. Holy shit, the "monster" doesn't like being used to scare babies pala? What a shocker.
And hey, this isn't just on the street. How many times are Indians made objects of ridicule on local TV shows, radio, etc.? How many songs has Michael V. put out making fun of Indians? My boys at the home I work in sing one particular song all the time around me and think it's funny. I grin and bear it, but I'm pretty fucking pissed inside. Not at my boys, but at a media that would condone such offensiveness. At the institutionalizing of such racism. I tell my boys that while your average Filipino delights in making fun of Indians, your average Indian doesn't even know the Philippines exists. And it's true.
Oh and our word for ourselves is not bumbay. I have only ever heard that word here, in the Philippines. Bombay is one city in a country of dozens and dozens of cities. As my sister once said, that would be like calling all Filipinos Manilas. And we do not like that word, seeing as, and I say this from personal experience, that word is only ever used when Filipinos express disdain, revulsion, or some other negative feeling for Indians. The word itself has racist connotations; using it and saying, "Oh that's just the Filipino word for Indians," is like telling a black person, "Oh, 'negro' is just our word for people of African descent." It's beyond offensive, to say the least.
But c'mon, our country doesn't just confine itself to Indians. I heard that the common word used by Pinoys for Chinese-Filipinos, "intsik," is racist to them. My boys at the home think it's perfectly alright to go up to a black person and say, "What's up nigger?" because they hear it in rap songs. I excuse that and chalk it up to a lack of education. But even educated people torment anyone dark-skinned, calling them "negro," "ita" and "nog-nog." My brother couldn't stand his last school because the kids made fun of him for being dark. He was even cast as a (fuck me!) terrorist in some UN day presentation at school. Apparently, he was supposed to hug a fair-skinned kid, showing the West and the Terrorist making peace. I guess your average terrorist is a dark-skinned South Asian/Arab eh? Lovely. And this was his teacher's fucking idea, P.S.
I find it sad that, in this country, my brother has only found friendship and acceptance in an international school, among foreigners. I make fun of how he can speak French but not Tagalog and how he knows next to nothing about this country we live in, but I can't blame him for his disinterest. Given how actively hostile his former Filipino classmates appeared to be to him, this country has given him no reason to love it.
And hey, we call any fixed game "lutong Macau" even though your average Pinoy can't even point to Macau on a map. We say "amoy Arabo" for anyone who smells bad, and since 9/11, any Arab is automatically a terrorist. Before 9/11, people would automatically call me bumbay and make fun of my smell. Now, people automatically assume I'm Arab and make terrorist-flavored jokes. I don't know which is worse.
We even make fun of our own people. Anyone with a Bisayan accent is to be tormented. Aetas, or anyone with similar features, are to be relentlessly ridiculed. Anyone from Mindanao, or any Muslim, is to be feared because he'll probably go "amok" or is probably a terrorist. In a survey my group did for our college research paper, a Muslim man we interviewed in Baseco told us that Robinsons malls have an unofficial no-hire policy for any Muslim, which is why none of them ever get hired there.
I could go on and on but you get the picture.
And sure, everyone will forward angry e-mails and repost crap on their Friendster bulletin boards, but tomorrow, the same people will be lining up at the US embassy, desperately trying to get a green card. As what? As doctors and nurses in the US. If you're really so pissed, you'd all boycott that country's health industry.
So you'll excuse me if I roll my eyes and say "whatever" at this latest burst of "righteous" indignation. Before we crucify Teri, let's make sure we're not racists ourselves eh?
Otherwise, we're just being fucking hypocrites.
No comments:
Post a Comment