http://blogs.gmanews.tv/sidetrip/blog/inde...ino-racism.html

Tuesday, October 14. 2008

One would expect educated Filipinos not to act like the least educated white Americans.

With a perfect financial storm coupled with Sarah Palin's self-destruction, John McCain's boat is sinking and it's beginning to look like a landslide for Barack Obama, who is leading McCain now by 10 percentage points in most polls with less than three weeks to go to election day.

But as in the Philippines' own electoral magic realism (with an emphasis on magic), anything can happen in US politics. Recall the bizarre events in Florida in 2000 that resulted in George Bush's victory despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore. And the early exit polls in 2004 that virtually declared John Kerry the winner over Bush, who then won with a surprisingly massive mobilization of the evangelical right. Among a crowd of political junkies in the US Embassy in Manila on that year's election day, I remember observing with a gaping mouth the unfolding state-by-state results on a big monitor, as Kerry lost to the man who would become what the New Yorker magazine recently called the "worst US president since the Reconstruction" (1863-1877).

For the first time in US history, race may be a decisive factor in 2008. As the first black Democratic nominee, Obama has done a masterful job of reaching out to white voters and making himself a candidate of all races. Yet despite the Republican Party's woes and a nearly flawless Democratic campaign, Obama was still in a dead heat with McCain before the financial crisis hit. To my mind, as well as to other observers', there can only be one credible reason: race.

Pundits are talking about the so-called "Bradley Effect," which describes a tendency on the part of white voters to tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate but still end up voting for his white opponent. The Washington Post:

The phenomenon got its name a generation ago, after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley (D), an African American, lost the 1982 gubernatorial race in California despite leading his white opponent in the polls on the eve of the election. Some experts suspected at the time that a portion of white voters, reluctant to appear biased, had essentially lied to pollsters about which candidate they were supporting. But whether Bradley lost because of hidden racism has never been clear

.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof cites studies that assert that "Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white."

Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.

Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously

.

McCain, Palin, and their proxies have exploited this tendency on the part of many whites by making obviously coded references to Obama's race, trying to create fear about his foreign-sounding name, and creating an impression that Obama is Muslim and even Arab, as a middle-aged woman at one of McCain's town hall meetings proclaimed.

And then there are Filipino-American voters. Historically, Fil-Ams have voted Republican, intent on protecting their middle class pocket books from higher taxes. But this toxic campaign has underlined a toxic Pinoy prejudice against dark-skinned people. An article in the Filipino-American newspaper, Asian Journal Online, describes racist emails and comments not just from Filipino cranks but from leaders of the Fil-Am community:

A former president of the Filipino American Council of Greater Chicago taunted the Chicago-based publication, PINOY Newsmagazine, by e-mailing altered pictures with the heading, "If Obama wins." One image shows the Kentucky Fried Chicken logo with Colonel Sanders wearing a turban. Another photo shows the iconic McDonald's sign changed to McHammed's.

The Chicago alumni president of a very reputable Catholic university in Manila chimed-in by forwarding a message with the subject entitled, "Interesting: Barack H. Obama, 50 Lies and Counting." Asked by one of the recipients, whom he’s recommending for president, his loaded reply was, "The one who tells the TRUTH." When confronted, he feigned innocence by saying that he was only trying to pass the information around.

Yet another personality, who was crowned Mrs. Philippines in Chicago, was more direct. Santos, the newspaper publisher, recalled that after writing about Senator Obama, he was confronted in public by the individual who claimed "in loud and emotional outburst" that Obama is an "evil man." That same community leader also heads the Philippine Lions Club of Chicago.

The onslaught of racially-charged denunciations continued at the start of Spring.

On the 40th Death Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. last April, this reporter invited a friend to watch a one-act play honoring the legacy of the foremost civil rights leader. Out of nowhere, a pointed rejection came: "Those blacks are parasites" followed by an Obama-bashing comment.

Another friend, a graduate of the Philippines' oldest university, could not hide his disdain of Obama either. As a healthcare practitioner, he said that he had encountered a number of African-American patients. He said that they are "lazy" and dependent on government dole-outs. He concluded that a win by Obama would only perpetuate the black's sense of victimhood.



Filipino racism of course is rooted in an inferiority complex we inherited from being treated like inferiors by pale Spaniards for four centuries. Yet one would expect educated Filipinos to overcome this weakness and not act like the least educated white Americans. Besides, most Filipinos are not any more fair-skinned than Obama, whose mother was white.

Because of both his skin color and upbringing, Obama may have a natural empathy towards Asian minorities in America. He is the only US presidential candidate in history to have spent a major part of his life in Southeast Asia, a childhood he describes so eloquently in his book Dreams From My Father. But that statement is only true if one doesn't count his opponent, who also spent a major part of his life in Southeast Asia -- all five years as a POW in a brutal Vietnamese prison, where no one would be surprised if McCain developed a lifelong hatred for Southeast Asians.

That's pretty sad to see this, then again Filipinos and blacks haven't really gotten along anyway historically anyway.

They are free to vote whomever.

You vote for Obama, those angry blacks won't thank you. They will continue viewing Asians and whites as enemies.

why would we need them to thank us?

^Because a vote for Obama is a vote for continued affirmative action and expanded welfare checks for the black perpetual underclass. Your wealth will get redistributed under his regime.

Historically? What history b/t Filipinos & blacks are you referring to? Filipinos dont really have much of a history w/ blacks, much less a history of conflict w/ them. It's not like Korean-Americans & blacks. In fact, during the Philippine-American War, some African-Americans supported the Philippines because they felt that it was a racist war.

Link

Yeah I knew that....I'm glad there's has been some history with blacks and Filipinos, but not so much other than the Philippine-American war.

I don't know of blacks in the US that put Asians and whites in the same category except for maybe economically sometimes. As far as enemies go, those that I know who see Asians that way do so out of xenophobia (and see anyone as foreign or 1st/2nd generation as being "enemies", not specifically Asians).


That's what I thought.

history of makin blasian babies.

In my opinions the general Black public, not the political/media elite, see Asians and Whites as the same. Besides the Japanese/American interment within the lifetime of any living Black person they see no outward descrimination anywhere approaching Jim Crow. And even those with a greater sense of history see Chinese exclusions as nothing compared to slavery.

To this day Asian's will get called "offwhite" emphasing that like in aparthied South Africa were Taiwanese had official almost white status, Asians history is closer to the majority mainstream then to slaves who it was illegal to teach how to read.

I am a black American. I have always lived around and was raised around other black Americans. From what I gather, Asians are seen in pretty much the same light as non-black "Latinos" -- they're not "us" but they're also not the dominant group or in a position to control power in the US much more than "us" (as the white majority could). Actually, a lot of old school blacks in the US still think of things in terms of "Colored" and "white", which essentially groups all non-whites in the US into a similar category. In that regard, the older generation (which I find holds true in my family as well) tends to look at non-black Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans as "cousins" in a sense based on being minorities "of color" in the US -- not "brothers/sisters", but "cousins". Please note that I am only talking about black Americans.


Blacks in America don't know (or possibly don't care) about that. We/they see that Asians are a minority and historically considered to be "of color" in America and only consider that factor without going into semantics about historical differences on other continents. Also, when you're talking about Asian American history, there are a lot of parallels to what black Americans faced to a certain extent (railroad workers, Yellow Peril, Chinese Exclusion Act, etc.)

Yeah, but Asians had...Chinese Exclusion Act, Yellow Peril, etc. like what FrenchVanillaNYC said. Plus blacks and Asians couldn't marry White people back in the day, so basically all minorities were pretty much in the same boat, they may had different episodes, but they all suffered the same crap.

Just saying my perception of opinions were the Asian/White couples were seen as closer to inter-religious say Catholic/Protestant of Christian/Jew couples where as many Blackmen could find themselves hanging from a tree if they looked the wrong way at a white woman.

Older blacks knew "colored" didn't mean anyone but them. There is Rick Schoder movie, The Lost Battalion set in 1918. His unit had a Korean or Chinese signalman in an army so segregated that Blacks went to battle in French uniforms. The multi-ethnic platoon always had a Native American or Latino. Blacks had an extra special burden.

In another movie made in the 70s set in the 1930s/40s about a Harlem Globetrotter like baseball team Richard Pryor played a player trying to pass as Native American and Cuban to be the first instead of Jackie Robinson to break the colorline. Actually not to break the colorline but just to pass as "not colored which equaled black" But just to pass as other ethnic group which had it better in American society.

The "one of us" feeling probably came later when others being "one of us, colored" in the 60s gave even more political power for minority set asides. But then by the 60s only old folks actually would call theirselves "colored"

Because blacks were the predominant non-white group, it normally referred to blacks simply out of numbers and not because other non-white groups were not also grouped in as Colored at times (particularly in the Southern US). It's just a really general category, especially for mixed race people or people whose race may not have been distinct.


This was much, much, much earlier than the '60s.

As a matter of fact, some of the first Asians to settle in the US (namely the few that settled in the South) wound up intermingling and intermarrying with blacks in the late 1700s and 1800s. The men would more commonly marry blacks (this includes "mulattos" and Creoles) than any other group (including Asians since there were barely Asian women there) because of the Jim Crow laws present. As a result, you'll every once in a blue moon see a black person from somewhere like Louisiana with a straight up Chinese last name with no visible trace of Chinese.

wow it amazing, ain't u 2 the about the same age.....
DAVID FAGEN! click me... oh at the same time 11 others defected too.

Smells like Socialism.

Filipinos in the Philippines were overwhelming for Obama.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/...olds-mock-polls



That's 77% to 23%

I think that with Filipinos, racism is still an issue, but when they see a person who they think is good at what they do (especially athletes, singers, actors, or politicians) they put their racist feelings aside.

the black vs. asian thing saddens me, seeing as im partially black as well as Filipino.

the way I see it: Blacks are simply upset at asians, due to claims that asians are racist to all Non-asians (thanks the Japanese for that). But seriousley, Blacks go off on the rumors of how much asians hate them without any prior knowledge, and asians make it no better by saying things like this about blacks. If you keep callins "Lazy" and such eventually we're going to become "Lazy" cuz thats what everyone expects. Neither side is justified, and Im angry at all races in some way. We all fu-ked up at some point in history, you gotta admit that