Racism, the West and us

The latest racist coloured brouhaha is about a BBC produced comedy skit that depicted a Filipino maid. This comes a year or so after a similar slur on Filipino doctors (more accurately, medical schools) in the Hollywood dish "Desperate Housewives"

The BBC skit was aired last Sept 26 in the comedy "Harry and Paul". Yahoo Philippines has the news report here.

While the Housewives slur hinted at professional incompetence of health workers, the BBC skit's slur is more offensive and disturbing as Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel says. The comedy trivializes human trafficking. The Philippine Embassy in London has lodged complaints with BBC and the British Government. Her Majesty's Brittannic Ambassador in Manila has expressed regret but emphasizes that the BBC while publicly funded, is independent of the Government of the day.

It agree on the latter point. The BBC has many times in the past irritated the government and even the Royals.

This represents again the cultural gulf between the West and its moral relativism and us. When I was in Australia, I have seen similar racial stereotyping in shows on the telly. There were some complaints but the issue died down quite rapidly. But if gays and other pansexuals were treated ridiculously, the networks will issue an immediate apology.

Not even a disrespectful treatment of a global religion such as Islam will merit an apology. Remember the Danish cartoonist's treatment of the Prophet? As for Christ, the Pope and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Western relativism has lampooned Christianity that any complaint will fall on deaf ears.

Comments

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats, which are when the time is right and who will in...

Leonard Co (1953-2010), Filipino botanist

With much sadness and shock I learned from WWF chair Lory Tan that internationally renowned botanist Leonard Co was killed together with a guide and a forest ranger last Monday, 15 November in a firefight in Leyte between Armed Forces of the Philippines soldiers and Communist guerrillas. As the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports it , Co and his researchers were surveying a forest plot of the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) for native Philippine trees and plants especially those that are in danger of extinction, like this Rafflesia flower (the picture I got from Dr Julie Barcelona's blog . Thank you Julie) The 41 year old Communist insurgency has again claimed another life of the best and brightest of the Philippines. In Leonard Co's case, a bright life that cannot be replaced. For he was one of if not the last of the classically trained botanists in plant taxonomy and systematics in the Philippines. While one can learn the basics of these disciplines i...

How should we remember General Antonio Luna?

Well it seems with that proposal to rename Camp Aguinaldo to Camp Antonio Luna in time for National Heroes Day has generated a lot of social media buzz. We really have to really understand our national heroes. Antonio Luna was a remarkable personality but like all of us was flawed. He likely would be an academic had the revolution not intervened. He would have been the first Dean of a College of Science of the Philippine University had the nation made the transition to indepe ndence in a peaceful manner. That was recognized by the American College of Pharmacy when they feted Dr Luna on what would have been his 60th birthday noting his work in combating malaria. But that was not to be. He became a soldier. General Luna was for a professional military within the bounds of the constitution. Perhaps that is the biggest sign of contradiction for today. Please answer the question: Would President Duterte (or a President Aquino, Marcos, Arroyo, Quezon etc) have a General Luna as his c...

blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Search This Blog