Privilege

            Racism and patriarchy are the most prominent systems of oppression in the United States and in the Philippines. They are based on a brutal history of discrimination against women and Brown and Black people that came about when White people (specifically Spaniards and White Americans) colonized these two places under the fallacy of “saving or civilizing savages.” Although the Japanese also did their part in the dark history of the Philippines. The idea of benevolent assimilation (Zinn 2008) is ironic, misguided, and infuriating. Assimilation, in the case of the Americans and Spaniards, was never “benevolent.” Even in the States, people assimilate in order to avoid the consequences of being foreign in a White-dominated society. So even then, assimilation is not benevolent because it stems from fear.

When Ileto (1998) quotes General Bell on “tutelage,” it makes me think of how it’s one the plethora of euphemisms that White people are so good at sprinkling throughout our history books and in their public speeches to make us think they are genuinely doing us a favor. And they seriously believe they mean well too. To know so many Brown people believe them is frustrating but understandable once you learn the history. However, it is even more enraging when White people think and act this way even when it is pointed out clearly and with straight facts that what they benefit from is literally a result of the centuries of rape, murder, and psychological manipulation of Filipinos, as well as a ridiculous amount of other countries by their (White) people.

Sometimes, it is difficult to tell what parts of myself are privileged and which are oppressed. I’m constantly analyzing interactions with Whites to see if I was treated as Brown or White, or if I was being discriminated against as a woman. The “invisible knapsack” that is White privilege and male privilege, as mentioned by Peggy McIntosh (1988), is a list I go through daily to be able to understand my place in American society. I often make the mistake of thinking I am not racist, but the messages I have been receiving subliminally throughout my life are so well-hidden and constant that it can be extremely difficult or almost impossible to root out of the characteristics that I project onto others, particularly Brown and Black people. When I am unable to articulate my privileges and biases, that’s a sign that I should be working harder to be open-minded, receptive, and better educated so that I can check myself and not be an oppressive nuisance to the people of color around me. 

When am I privileged and when am I oppressed?

Bibliography

Ileto, R.C. (1998). The Philippine-American War, Friendship and Forgetting. In Shaw, A.V. &  Francia, L.H. Vestiges of war. (pp. 3-21). New York: New York Press.

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In K. Tupper, Introduction to women’s studies: Women 200 (2nd ed.) (pp. 62-71). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 

Zinn, H. (2008). Invasion of the Philippines. In A people’s history of American empire. (pp.53-72) NY: Metropolitan Books.