Colorism in the Philippines — stopping the effects of colonialism
Color helps shape us — both positively and negatively. Color is what we use to see the world, represent values, and create meaning. Yet color also brings a divide in our society. In the 1950s and 1960s, color in America is what defined who could sit where, where one could go to school, and which places one could enter. Colorism exists in many Asian countries. As a dark skinned Filipino in America, I definitely feel a pressure in wanting to have lighter skin. In middle school, I used a skin whitening face wash to try to lighten my skin. My dark skin was something I was embarrassed of. Although today I am very proud of what I look like and accept myself, in the past it was hard to do so when most of my peers all had lighter skin.
In the Philippines, colorism is blatantly seen in the media. Actors and actresses in mainstream media are lighter skinned. In Bianca Punzalan’s Ted Talk: Colorism in the Philippines, she cites that the women from the Philippines who are sent to Miss Universe all are half white, thus having lighter skin than the majority of the Filipino population. Colorism plays into a structure of power emphasizing that white people are better, more superior, and the ideal. Colorism is a prejudice and devalues those that do not fit into the lighter skin spectrum. The speaker highlights her personal experiences and observations to emphasize how colorism is negatively enforced in the Filipino community, ultimately calling upon a change to be made in society. Her stance is agreed upon as colorism does have negative effects in society, but does not strongly illustrate what steps need to be taken to stop colorism.
In the 1500s, the Philippines was first colonized by Spain. The Spanish were able to successfully convert Filipinos to believe in Roman Catholicism and were also successful in perpetuating a beauty standard that looked highly upon white people. Whiteness is associated with wealth, intelligence, and most importantly power as shown by white colonizers exerting power over the native people. Dark skinned people are associated with being poor, dirty, and uncivilized. Laborers and the working class had to work long hours in the sun, their skin eventually becoming darker. Yet, those with privilege were able to stay indoors and keep their skin light. These white, eurocentric values glorifying white skin dominate Asian culture. Despite being freed from colonization hundreds of years ago, Asian countries continue to hold colorist ideals. By continuing to enforce the white standard of beauty, those with dark skin try harder to align with the white standard and sacrifice themselves to fit into a biased societal ideal.
The speaker includes their own personal experience of using skin lightening to showcase the harms that it does to people. She says that she exfoliated her face every day to attempt to make her skin lighter and diminish the darkness from her face. However, this repeated action of abrasively touching the skin caused her to start to bleed and prevent her from focusing in school. The speaker showed vulnerability with the audience by sharing a raw story. The power of sharing a personal story indicates the speaker’s personal connection with the issue, making her statements and arguments more impactful to the audience. She was able to firsthand showcase what the negative effects of colorism had done to her. Yet her argument could have greater impact if she included other people’s experiences and stories. In this way, she falls short of showing colorism’s true negative harm in the Philippines. Her story does resonate with other Filipinos who try to lighten their skin either spending loads of money on products or harming their skin in the process. Skin lightening products can be damaging to the skin, containing ingredients that can cause cancer, thin skin, and nervous system damage. Yet skin lightening procedures are commonplace and using these harmful products is considered normal. The normality of trying to change one’s natural skin color indicates how deeply rooted colorism is in society. The abundance of advertisements and commercials for these products creates negative perceptions valuing one skin color over another. In these ways, colorism has negative physical and emotional effects on the Filipino community. Being able to recognize the ways in which colorism harms people can help us better understand how to stop colorism from continuing to exist in our society and in people’s minds.
Colorism gives unfair treatment to those with dark skin in professional and academic environments. Better treatment and priority are given to light skinned individuals causing students to face a lack of adequate attention from their teachers or preventing people from getting hired. This creates a cycle of discrimination as those with lighter skin are given more spaces and opportunities to grow. In South Korea, whitening surgeries are done to lighten the skin. This phenomenon to lighten skin is very common in Asia. Colorism creates societal inequalities as people are being wrongly treated solely due to the color of their skin. To value colorism indicates society’s value over an individual’s beauty over their intelligence or capabilities. Colonialism’s effect on ingraining colorism in Asian society is detrimental. In Asia, this world of colorism shows people’s superficialness and how physical appearances matter more in our world rather than our personality or heart.
Punzalan recognizes that colorism needs to be eradicated to create more equal and welcoming spaces for people. However, she fails short of fully explaining what can be done to prevent colorism. She provides solutions like being more sensitive about the topic of skin color to people and to learn more about the issue. These are simple steps to preventing colorism but are not concrete solutions towards how to get rid of colorism’s effect in our society. Her suggestions are small ways to address colorism on a personal and local level. Yet there are more significant areas to be touched upon. Increasing representation of dark skinned people in mainstream media can help those with darker skin feel less ashamed of their skin color and help instill a greater sense of high self-esteem to see someone like them featured in the media. Creating policies that prohibit skin color discrimination or advantages for physical appearance can help create more fairness. Stopping purchases from skin lightening companies also allows us to break down barriers that colorism holds in place. Holding everyone as having equal value and worth no matter what they look like or what their background is can help create a more equitable space and prevent colorism from continuing to exist.
In Asia, there is a certain hierarchical status of Asian ethnicities when it comes to skin color. Filipinos are at the bottom for naturally having much darker skin than East Asians. Most Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people have lighter skin than South Asians and Southeast Asians. This grading system makes it so that Filipinos seem inferior to other Asian ethnicities. Although colorism cannot be stopped overnight, there are ways we can help prevent it from continuing to dominate our culture. By truly valuing every single person’s skin tone and seeing darkness as an attribute, not a hindrance, we can help create a more inclusive space for everyone. Despite what the media or others around us might say, we should embrace ourselves for who we are and not let the opinions of others shape what we do. Beauty starts from within and in order for our society to become a place of equality and inclusiveness, we all need to start realizing that.
