Racism or Hypersensitivity

Filipinos felt slighted when Korean actress, Lee Da Hae made fun of our accent in a tv show. IMHO, her accent sounded more like Chinese. So that’s hitting two nationalities there. But the funny thing is, Koreans go here specifically to learn the English language. We may not be as proficient as we once were, but we still speak good English.

In other Asian countries, language can be a huge barrier for tourists who can only speak English apart from their native tongue. It’s a struggle to haggle in night markets, ask for directions when you’re lost or tell the cab driver where you’re going.

But here, even our street vendors can speak broken English. And being the hospitable people that we are, if a foreigner asks them for directions and they cannot help him, they will find someone who can; a guard, policeman or a passerby who looks educated enough. And if the foreigner is lucky, someone may just gladly accompany him to his destination so he won’t get lost (o para lang di na mag nosebleed! hahaha)

This isn’t the first time other races made fun of us. There was that infamous episode in Desperate Housewives where the Teri Hatcher character wants to check the credentials of the doctor to “…make sure that they’re not from some med school in the Philippines”.  Oh well, the continued decline in ratings is probably karma. Or the viewers just lost interest in the series. Who knows?

In British tv, we were not spared in Harry and Paul. And there’s a new sketch from School of Comedy, which took a swipe at Filipinos yet again. The punchline is somewhere around 1:29 into the video. I don’t know, but this one is just too low.

But there are the likes of Russel Peters who’s just too hilarious, you don’t mind being the center of the joke.

We’re all a little racist. We poke fun at other race’s accent; even our own kababayans are not spared from our antics. We mimic Ilocano, Visayan, Kapampangan and our Muslim brothers’ accents.

But why is it when other races poke fun at our accent, we react fiercely? Is it because we can make fun of ourselves but they can’t make fun of us?

However we take these racial slurs is up to us. We can feel enraged because they bashed our country. Or we can just simply let it go (and say to yourself, “may araw din kayong mga bwiset kayo.” Kidding!). 😉

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• Morrissey reignites racism row by calling Chinese a ‘subspecies’ (guardian.co.uk)