I don’t know if this email forward below my post is for real. But suffering racism in your own country is nothing new in the Philippines. colonial mentality, perhaps? Unfortunately, this is a tragic reality in the Philippines - that fellow brown-skinned Filipinos would give more favors to the White foreigners.
Here’s a classic example…
February 21, 2003
Dear Madam,
I thought it only happens in the novels of Ralph Ellison. But I was wrong. I met racism face to face at the entrance of Café Havana in Green Belt Makati last Saturday, February 8, 2003.
As I and my companions approach the café’s door, at around 12 midnight, the six-foot tall Filipino guard apprehended me. He consequently told me that I’m not allowed to enter due to my attire.
I would have accepted his alibi if I had not seen white men in tee shirts freely entering and leaving the premises. So I countered and ask the guard, ‘why won’t you let me in when I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt, while those white men are just in their plain tees?’
Seemingly irritated by my question, the guard told me: ‘Café Havana ‘to. Priority namin ang foreigner.’ I was stunned that I remained standing in front of the entrance. I could not believe the reality of my experience. But it was not yet enough for the guard, he ultimately told me: ‘kung hindi kita papasukin, may magagawa ka ba?’
Surprised beyond words, I left, bewildered. Looking back at what happened, I could not blame the security guard alone. Sometimes some guards are like dogs; they only follow what their masters wished. Moreover, I’m not insulted that someone, who ; cannot even write a decent Spanish sentence, would verbally push me away from a pseudo-Hispanic commercial establishment. I’m rather shocked by the fact that I suffered the most savage form of racism not in a foreign land but in my own country and in the hands of people of my color.
Café Havana’s management policy is no doubt disturbing and prejudiced. What happened to me and my companions is not a purely isolated case, but a determined result of the management’s view that the indio is inferior to the white man. What happened is nothing but a practice of the company’s unstated racist policy. What happened is but a ramification of a policy that is unconsciously propagated by a semi-colonial state, a state that kowtows to foreign
capital. Racism, in short, is never incidental.
Any policy that springs from racism is indeed not appropriate for any establishment that gets permit to operate from the government, a government supposedly by Filipinos. I wish that Café Havana’s management would amend and reassess its barbaric policy before more people suffer the same fate. For if it remains firm on its racist practices, I would suggest that Café Havana put up a signboard which says: ‘Dogs and brown-skinned natives are not allowed here.’ That at least would be more humane.
Jose Duke Bagulaya
Department of English and Comparative Literature
University of the Philippines, Diliman
