By Jan Vicente ‘JV’ B. Pekas
Western beauty standards have pierced their way through our society that it has managed to convince us to deny our own natural looks. The original Filipino look that consists of short noses and dark skins have been slowly reduced into being the undesirable look that should be rectified should one desire to conform to our society and achieve a better status. These original and native Filipino characteristics have been pushed back by the fairer skins and sharp noses from the west.
All across our local media, they have only seen it fit to reinforce western beauty standards. Content to continue western propaganda that seeks to further destroy our identity.
Across classrooms, I have seen several occasions in which the darker skinned classmates of mine were mocked or belittled in both blunt and carefully hidden insults. Many of us, immature children at that time who consumed the media without any second thoughts, believed the western looks to be superior to that of our own. It truly did greatly well in leading us to deny our heritage and further cause division inside the classroom.
Now, we use looks to belittle fellow Filipinos. Especially for the indigenous groups who still retain the true Filipino look, they have found themselves to be labeled as second or even third-class citizens in the hierarchy. Indigenous groups, the same people who retain the purest Filipino blood, untouched by foreign invaders and those that have been here longer than most have been reduced to a sad state in our nation.
We find many reasons to further bolster the division that keep us powerless to make use of collective change. Each group uses different rhetorics to keep their own different from the others. And to use looks to differentiate and belittle have been especially popular and very effective.
This endless and unquestioning consumption of media only reinforce these divisions and even create new ones. Responsible consumption is an issue that should be taken more seriously. It has the power to cause such devastating division in our society.
In our world where we consume, consume, and consume, we have let our guards down that in our voracious search to scratch our unending itch, we have consumed poison. Western propaganda is keeping our minds in a similar state to the previous Filipinos under foreign rule. A Filipino that does not know her identity and declares their enemy to be of their own compatriots.
Question all that we see in the media. Whether it be local or foreign, all channels, programs, and media personality is not deserving of consumption without scrutiny. We must always question what we consume, carefully inspect them, because before we know it, we become a people conditioned to always be the colonized. **
