First my Filipino sister-in-law entered the mall. As always, the unsmiling security guard looked her over, asked her to open her purse, and explored its innards with a stick. Then nodded gruffly for her to pass.
Now it was my turn. Stepping up, I paused to offer my own bag for an equally thorough search. But the guard just smiled and waved me in. After which, my wife’s sister and I looked at each other with amusement before dissolving into peals of unrestrained laughter.
White privilege.
Back in the USA, it’s the object of piercing accusation and vociferous denial. Social justice warriors routinely call it out to shame those perceived as its beneficiaries. While more conservative folk like me, acknowledging the sometimes-significant role of white entitlement in the nation’s history, argue that its effects are now largely mitigated by modern customs, sensibilities, and laws.
Things are noticeably different in the Philippines.
Here the contrasting deportment towards white foreigners and darker-hued natives is obvious to all. And yet it is viewed with amusement more often than rancor. And from the foreigner’s point of view, It’s as much a curse as it is a blessing.
There are several good things about being white in the Philippines. Almost everyone calls you sir. No one complains if you cut in line. And, as previously mentioned, you can sometimes enter malls without opening your bag for inspection.
The list of negatives for foreigners of any hue, however, is far more substantial. You can’t own land, are barred from taking part in politics or protests, and are often expected to pick up the dinner tab for everyone with whom you dine.
Bottom line: the Filipino relationship to foreigners, especially white ones, is complicated. I don’t pretend to understand it. What I suspect, though, is that it has a great deal to do with economics, colonialism, and war.
Race relations in America are steeped in history too. The United States, after all, allowed slavery until the mid-19th century, fought a ferocious civil war to end it, and endured a long civil rights movement ensuring equal liberties for all. And yet, ironically, Americans seem more race conscious today than ever before.
During much of my life, for instance, certain racial minorities have benefited from special consideration in college admissions and hiring through a government-enforced policy called affirmative action. Last year the US Supreme court wisely banned race-based preferences in education after Asian Americans—including Filipinos—deemed it unfair. And now my home state of California is considering legislation to gut that decision by allowing governor-granted “exceptions” to the non-discrimination rule.
“Will they ever give up?” columnist William McGurn wondered in a recent Wall Street Journal piece entitled Making Discrimination OK Again. “Those looking to divvy up Americans by race, that is.”
Here in the Philippines, it’s less black and white, to use a well-worn pun. Though racial differences are obvious and openly acknowledged, they don’t seem to be a source of major conflict. Sometimes humor intervenes, as in the comical comparisons of the popular skin-lightening products here vs. the fly-off-the-shelves sun-tanning lotions on foreign shores. And, like anywhere, ethnic and racial differences disappear as social intercourse and friendships grow.
I was still in junior high school when legendary civil rights guru Martin Luther King delivered his most famous speech. “I have a dream,” he bellowed to a crowd of 250,000 gathered at Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Words to live by. Perhaps even more now than on the momentous day they were uttered.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines. His latest book is “A Tooth in My Popsicle,” is available on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
