Colorism in the Philippines

[Music]

so i’m filipino

and the last time i visited the

philippines i ended up catching a cold

so i went to the drugstore to buy

medicine for it and i was walking

through the store

and i came across an aisle like this one

and at first the only thing that was

even remotely remarkable about this

aisle

was the fact that there was just an

utter abundance of lotion there

and i mean who would ever need that much

lotion in their life that was pretty

funny to me

but upon a closer look i realized that

all of the products that were there

were for skin lightening

and for someone like me who’s on the

darker end of the skin color spectrum at

least by filipino standards

i wondered why would someone ever want

to strip their skin of its pigment

i mean first of all it’s expensive and

it seems unnecessary and as you’re

essentially

bleaching your skin it is obviously

painful

but the sad truth of it all is that in

the philippines

having dark skin equates to being dirty

ugly

and poor it’s the reason why people

don’t leave their house without

umbrellas

even when it’s not raining why they wear

full length pants and long sleeve shirts

in 110 degree weather and it’s why

someone like me

would walk into a drugstore fully

stocked

with skin lightening products

and in that moment when i was looking at

all those products on the shelf that

seemed to tell me that i shouldn’t look

the way that i do

i had never felt like more of an

outsider

and i had never felt more ugly

so why why is skin lightening so

prevalent in southeast asia particularly

in the philippines

well long story short the philippines

has a very long history of colonization

one that accumulates to hundreds of

years even and during this time

native filipinos were forced to

relinquish their beliefs in favor of

eurocentric ones

that their white oppressors believed

were superior to theirs

and one of these was a new class system

in which your skin color was a factor

i.e the lighter your skin was the higher

your status was too

and soon enough filipinos began to try

to fit into this

white beauty standard of fair skin that

was being imposed upon them

and sadly this colonial ideal of

anti-brownness has never left the people

of the philippines

even now my grandmother tells me bianca

you’re so pretty

even though you’re dark and comments

like these comments about my skin

they rarely bother me as someone who has

always looked different from the people

in my family as you can see here

me on the right i’ve always had darker

skin than my relatives

my skin color was always a topic of

conversation in my family

they teased me about it all the time it

was even a long-standing joke that i was

far too dark to be related to my

brothers or my mom and that i just had

to be adopted or something

so i was used to it by now i was used to

the unwanted attention the mean comments

the criticism but it didn’t ever bother

me that much because i knew they didn’t

mean it

to them it was just funny but what my

grandmother said

she truly meant it that i was only

pretty

for a brown girl and that she would

never see me as truly

and wholly beautiful and that was what

hurt me the most

that i simply could never be beautiful

in her eyes because my skin was brown

instead of white the first time my

grandma told me this

i went to my mom about it and she could

obviously tell that i was bothered so

she reassured me that

you know my skin was something i should

be proud of i shouldn’t feel insecure

about it it was something that made me

beautiful

but how was i supposed to believe her

after all i had grown up watching

filipino actors and actresses on tv and

they were all fair-skinned

and even if there was a dark-skinned

actor or they received far less screen

time

and they were usually just there for

comic relief i started to feel even

worse when i would watch the miss

universe pageants

on television every year and i started

to notice this pattern that the

philippines had to send contestants

who were half white and half filipino

and they all had fair skin

and obviously these women are

intelligent and gorgeous but

that made me think why could i never see

myself in these women

why was it that they never looked like

me if these women were supposed to be

the embodiments of beauty and grace and

what it truly meant to be the ideal

filipino woman

then why did an eye look like them

was it because brown girls like me were

we just not worth

being shown maybe we weren’t beautiful

at all

i wanted to be them so i wore sunscreen

all the time i avoided the sun

at all costs and i would aggressively

exfoliate my skin

every single day in hopes that i could

scrub off the color off my face as if it

were dirt

it was terrible and i’m ashamed of

admitting it now

and as unhealthy as it sounds i found

satisfaction in feeling like this gap

between me

and those fair-skinned women that i had

always envied was getting a little bit

smaller

that with every layer of skin that i was

scrubbing off i was getting closer to

what i thought it meant to be beautiful

and after some time of trying to

actively lighten my skin i was

experiencing

physical pain from it my skin was

excruciatingly dry

i had scabs on my face i was bleeding it

even became difficult for me to focus in

school or even fall asleep

because i was in so much pain and that’s

when i realized that

nothing was worth hurting that much

that my skin the skin that i have now it

is the only skin that i will ever exist

in

so who cares about what some colonials

from hundreds of years ago

had to say about what is beautiful and

what’s not

i should be taking care of my skin i

should love it and appreciate it

and you and i and all of us should just

radically accept ourselves for who we

are

as we are and not feel that we have to

change how we look

for anyone but ourselves so i tried to

do just that

i broke my skin lightening habits and

slowly but surely

my perception of beauty and my

perception of myself too

it changed and now i think how could i

have ever been ashamed of my skin

ashamed of the color of generations of

native filipinos who not only existed

but thrived long before the spanish

colonials thought they had discovered

them

and i’m proud to say that now i can look

at fair-skinned women that i once envied

and not feel any ounce of jealousy that

i can look

in the mirror and appreciate my skin for

what it is

a product of the history resilience

and beauty of the filipinos who came

before me

unfortunately this is not a realization

that everybody comes to

today the skin lightening industry an

industry built off of the self-hate

and insecurities of vulnerable

individuals is a multi-billion dollar

industry

millions of people worldwide they’re

willing to buy pills

undergo surgeries just to lighten their

skin and the people

who can’t afford the surgeries or the

medication to

achieve the look they’ll buy cheaper

products

with dangerous chemicals in it some of

which have even been linked to having

mercury poisoning

and colorism has effects far beyond just

a person’s confidence

or their physical health people with

darker skin at least in the philippines

are more likely to get bullied for their

appearance

they have harder times getting hired

over fair-skinned individuals

and the colorism they face has been

linked to depression anxiety and other

mental illnesses

so what can we do to stop this problem

obviously there’s no overnight solution

but there are small changes that all of

us

myself included are capable of that can

make all the difference

for one thing just being more careful

about what you’re saying goes a long way

for example i know that it would always

really hurt my feelings

when a friend of mine or family member

would say something along the lines of

oh i don’t want to stay in the sun too

long today i don’t want to get too dark

and i know that someone you know who

looks like me or is even darker than i

am might feel similarly

so just practice sensitivity

and think about how your words can

affect others and their self-esteem

secondly support dark-skinned and

brown-skinned southeast asians

you know watch their movies listen to

their music read their books

make them feel like they’re important

tell them that you value them

go out of your way to uplift them

because letting them know that they’re

appreciated and being kind to them

can mean so much more than you think

and finally never stop fighting colorism

because it’s a global issue it doesn’t

just affect filipino people

colorism affects people all over asia

the latino community

indigenous people and it especially

affects people of african descent

so keep seeking information about

colorism and have conversations with

people who are affected by it

and ask them about their experiences

because you and i we still have a lot to

learn

and the more we try to educate ourselves

the closer we will be to a solution

and although eradicating this kind of

discrimination

altogether is no easy feat i am hopeful

and i am confident that through a

collective effort we can end colorism

once and for all thank you