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Colonial mentality
Colonial mentality
Colonial mentality refers to institutionalised or systemic feelings of inferiority amongst some societies or peoples who have been subjected to colonialism, relative to the mores or values of the foreign powers which had previously subjugated them. The concept essentially refers to the culture or doctrines of the coloniser being accepted by the colonised as intrinsically more worthy or superior. The subject matter is quite controversial.
Origins
Throughout human history nations and peoples have continuously colonised and been colonised. It is said that when a foreign colonial or imperial power is too strong to be effectively resisted, the colonised population often has no other immediate option than to accept the rule of the foreigners as an inescapable reality of life. As time progresses, the colonised natives would perceive the differences between the foreigners and themselves, between the foreigners' ways and the native ways. This would then sometimes lead the natives to mimic the foreigners in power as they began to associate that power and success with the foreigners' ways. This eventually led to the foreigners' ways being regarded as the better way and being held in a higher esteem than previous indigenous ways.
In much the same fashion, and with the same reasoning of better-ness, the colonised soon equates the foreigners' racial strain itself as being responsible for their superiority. The native soon strives to that strain to give their children a better standing in life than just their native genes.
The Spanish Empire
The former subjects of the Spanish Empire - Hispanic America and the Philippines - are the most commonly cited examples where the phenomenon of colonial mentality may be found. Spanish conquistadors, the first European settlers in the New World, divided the conquered lands among themselves and ruled as feudal lords, treating their subjects as something between serfs and slaves, Amerindians and imported black Africans respectively. Some Spaniards, however, objected to this encomienda system, notably Bartolomé de Las Casas, who insisted that the indígenes (natives) were human beings with souls and rights. Serfs stayed to work the land and slaves were exported to the mines, where large numbers of them died. Largely due to the efforts of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the New Laws were adopted in 1542 to protect the Amerindians, but the abuses were not entirely or permanently abolished.
The Spaniards were committed to converting their Amerindian subjects to Roman Catholicism, and were quick to purge any native cultural practices that hindered this end. However, most initial attempts at this were only partially successful, as Amerindian groups simply blended Catholicism with their traditional beliefs. On the other hand, the Spaniards did not impose their language to the degree they did their religion, and the Catholic Church even evangelized in Quechua, Nahuatl and Guarani, contributing to the expansion of these Amerindian languages and equipping them with writing systems.
The Philippines
In the Philippines colonial mentality is most evident in the biased favouritism for Filipino mestizos (primarily those of native Filipino and white ancestry, but also native Filipino and Chinese, etc.) in the entertainment industry and mass media which they have saturated disproportionately, despite constituting the smallest minority in the country.
Of the current demographics of the Philippines, the combined number of all types of mestisos constitute no more than 2% of the entire Filipino population. Of that 2%, less than half are of the Spanish variety, while the rest of the population - constituting 95% and numbering over 80 million - is composed of unmixed native Filipinos. A recent genetic study by Stanford University, however, indicates that just 3.6% of the population has at least some European ancestry. See also Ethnic groups of the Philippines.
The biased favouritism responsible for their overwhelming presence in film and television is deeply-rooted on established Filipino "ideals of beauty" that are determined on the possession of partial European ancestry, an ideal that stems from colonial concepts first introduced by over 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, then by a further generation of Anglo-American occupation.
Physical consequences
One of the more adverse physical consequences in the idealization and acceptance of the racial concepts of colonial mentality can be seen in the high rate of consumer demand for skin bleaching products in the Philippines. Skin-whitening creams have for a long time been popular and widely used in much of the Philippines for the lightening of Filipino skin tones - a South East Asian Malay people - which is inherently darker, in order to achieve the much desired, sought-after "Mestizo look". The products are used primarily by women who have succumbed to the Filipino ideal and colonial doctrine of the idealization of mestizo beauty to the greatest extreme. The consumers of these products, whether conscious or subconsciously, are following the dangerous edict on beauty by continuing to use those products despite the extremely hazardous side effects to their health, including a high risk of various cancers due to many of its active ingredients, including mercury. These products have been banned in the USA, but their sale and demand in the Philippines continues to be widespread. [1]
Either way, despite the lightening of their skin tones, users of such products do not end up looking convincingly "European" or caucasian due to the shape of their skulls, which remain like that of the typical Filipino Malay. It should be noted that a number Southern Europeans themselves tend to have darker skin. Some women even have nose lifts.
Pedigree and forgery
Colonial mentality is also at the root of a long established Filipino tradition of ethnic forgery used in the attempt to conform to the idealized mestizo pedigree dictated by the former colonial Filipino socio-racial hierarchy. They pass as other races.
This ethnic forgery is characterized by the habit of many Filipino families and individuals claiming mestizo status. It is often accompanied by handed-down oral accounts of a presumed Spanish great-great-grandfather or mestiza great-great-grandmother with no evidence other than a Spanish surname. However, unlike the people of the Hispanic world, of the millions of Spanish-surnamed Filipinos, very few families in the Philippines actually received their Spanish surnames from an actual Iberian ancestor. The overwhelming majority of Filipinos with Spanish surnames acquired them as a result of the Catálogo Alfabético de Apellidos ["Alphabetic Catalogue of Surnames"] decreed to be imposed on the entire Filipino population by the Spanish royal courts in order to facilitate record-keeping and tax collecting.
This preoccupation among Filipinos with identifying as anything other than Filipino also takes on a new form known as IMSCF Syndrome among Filipino Americans in North America and other western countries with expatriate Filipino communities.
Latin America
As in the Philippines, colonial mentality can also be seen in much the same form across Latin America. However, the demographic reality of Latin America is that much of its population is comprised of a majority that is of mixed race, either mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian) or mulatto (mixed white and black), who together they account for approximately 50% of the total population, with a large minority (30%) of Latin Americans of unmixed European descent. In the Latin American context, the "Ideal of Beauty" isn't to be of mixed European and other ancestry - as most Latin Americans are of that ancestry - but rather to be unmixed European.
In this instance, the Latin American entertainment industry is saturated with criollos (people of pure Spanish ancestry) or other Europeans, with very few mestizos, basically no mulattos, and much less unmixed blacks or Amerindians. In the Dominican Republic, a predominantly mulatto country, skin whitenning products are also quite popular and readily available.
This European idealisation of beauty has also lead to a condition of ethnic forgery among many Latin Americans. However, in contrast to the Filipino experience where the majority is composed of unmixed native Filipinos of whom some attempt to claim mix-blooded status, in Latin America the norm is for some within the mix-blooded majority to concentrate on attempting to diminish, hide or deny any non-European admixture. These will then often falsely claim to be pure Spanish in their attempts to conform to the idealized pedigree dictated by their Latin American socio-racial hierarchy. See also Passing - Race
A common joke in the United States, among both Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike, is the presence of more blonde and blue-eyed presenters on US-based Spanish language television networks such as Telemundo and Univisión than on the general public networks such as NBC or CBS. In Mexico the joke is made by suggesting the re-naming of media giant TV Azteca into "TV Blanca" (White TV), because in a country of over 100 million, where 60% is mestizo, 30% is Amerindian and 9% is unmixed European, almost every single presenter is an unmixed Spanish descendant or other European, there are almost no mestizos, and there are absolutely no natives after whom the network is supposedly named after, the Aztecs.
The British Empire
The Indian Subcontinent
Some critics point to Rudyard Kipling's portrayals of Indian characters generally supported the colonialist view that the Indians and other colonised peoples were incapable of surviving without the help of Europeans, claiming that these portrayals are racist. Examples of this alleged racism are mentioning "lesser breeds without the Law" in "Recessional" and referring to colonised people in general as "half-devil and half-child" in the poem "The White Man's Burden".
United States of America; Black America
Examples included the practice of the "Paper Bag Test", where African-Americans were allowed or denied entry in Black-only social institutions (bars, night clubs, cinemas, sororities, fraternities, etc.) based on how light the skin tone was when compared to a brown paper bag. Those Blacks with skin tones of same colour or lighter than the paper bag were allowed entry. This practice of institutionalized colorism, favouring the degree of "whiteness" among colored people, was exemplified more so by the "Blue Veins".
The "Blue Vein Society"
During the years when slavery was in its fullest swing, a Mulatto society known by the name "Blue Vein Society" came into existence (i.e. those who were of mixed White ancestry).
The original "Blue Veins" were a small society of mulattos organized in the north. Its main purpose was to establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose social condition, by virtue of their mixed White blood, was unlimited. The society was composed of individuals who were, in all essence, more white than black.
Some envious outsider made the suggestion that no one was eligible for membership who was not white enough to show blue veins. The suggestion was readily adopted by those who were not of the favored few, and since that time the society, though possessing a longer and more pretentious name, had been known far and wide as the "Blue Vein Society," and its members as the "Blue Veins."
The Arab world
Nada El-Yassir comments that "in certain areas in the Arab world, the lighter you are the more beautiful you are considered." She also says that it is common that women in the upper classes dye their hair blond. In some countries the implications of this hierarchy go so far as to affect one's social class and job opportunities.
There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with beauty ideals; all cultures have particular notions about what is aesthetically pleasing. Like other places, India and certain Arabic countries had their own culturally specific beauty ideals. However, these largely fell by the wayside after their encounters with colonial powers.
Iman Al-Jazairi says "Looking at Arabic poetry and novels, it is interesting to see that pre-Islamic poetry up until western colonization at the eighteenth century, women were always described as having long, wavy, black hair, brown skin, black eyes with the white of the eyes very white. The body proportions were also bigger. During the later part of the nineteenth century and until very recently, light skinned, blond women have usurped the beauty standard in modern Arabic literature.
The former Soviet Union
In some of the successor states of the former USSR much of the non-ethnic Russian population may see Russian culture as superior to the local ones. This is common for example in Ukraine, one of the more advanced successors. There is a marked preference for all things Russian and an overwhelming presence of the Russian language in politics, television, the internet, and music.
