Racial slur

We are at it again. Harry and Paul, the British lampoon known for making fun of everything–including their Queen–is recently the target of pinoy firepower for ill depicting the character of a Filipina domestic worker in an allegedly humiliating, sexist and racist manner. Soon enough, footage of the maligned segment of the British comedy quickly spread on the net.

Is the depiction racist?

As much as I would like to join the fray, I honestly think it is not. It is distateful, that’s for sure. It may be humiliating, at the very least. But I think the shame springs not from the fact that the Pinay was again downgraded but from the fact that deep inside of us we know it is bound to happen because as a nation we cannot do anything about the domestic worker’s plight

The so-called nationalists among us insist that we file a diplomatic protest, hold mass actions in front of the BBC office, and crucify the program’s insensetive producers. Will that resolve the issue?

Consider the following:

1. Clearly, this is not an isolated case. Some Western countries do have a penchant for putting Filipinas in a bad light–either as prostitutes or domestic workers, that is a given. Lest we forget it was a UK publisher who made “chimay” a synonym for Filipina in their dictionary. That was awfully painful. But for me, I think the more painful part is the fact that our women are seen as sex toys while government perenially fails to come up with a decent economic policy that may deter them from going abroad.

2. We are quick to react when we are the victims but rarely say sorry when we commit the slur. Consider how the Chinese are depicted in Filipino movies. Or better yet, consider how Filipinos treat other Filipinos. I suppose there is a rational explanation why in the  movies a housemaid is typically depicted to be someone from the Visayas.

3. The incident is, as similar others in the past were, a wake up call. Unfortunately, it is one that we cannot do anything about as a people. If we really want to correct other people’s prejudice, shoudn’t we begin by setting a good image? That means fixing our economy, reorienting our values, and building our national infrastructures so that we never have to clean other people’s dinner tables in foreign lands. Instead of filing diplomatic protests, we may start by choosing honest leaders that do not steal from taxpayers. Rather than picketing outside embassies, we may ponder on consolidating our efforts as a people, pooling our collective resources, and directing our actions to more concrete objectives like establishing businesses and other livelihoods.

The incident calls to mind how a remark by a Thai MBA student a few years ago sent me and my Filipino c0-fellows in Japan fuming. The Thai student was obviously irked by the fact that all of us passed the Macroeconomics exam and he did not. ”You Filipinos are so smart but I think we are still smarter,” he said. “Simply look at how far behind you are now.”

Sadly, he may be right.