Colonial mentality

Colonial mentality refers to institutionalised or systemic feelings of inferiority within some societies or peoples who have been subjected to colonialism, relative to the mores or values of the foreign powers which had previously subjugated them. The concept essentially refers to the acceptance, by the colonised, of the culture or doctrines of the coloniser as intrinsically more worthy or superior. The subject matter is quite controversial.

Origins

Throughout human history nations and peoples have continuously colonised and been colonised. It is said that when a foreign colonial or imperial power is too strong to be effectively resisted, the colonised population often has no other immediate option than to accept the rule of the foreigners as an inescapable reality of life. As time progresses, the colonised natives would perceive the differences between the foreigners and themselves, between the foreigners' ways and the native ways. This would then sometimes lead the natives to mimic the foreigners in power as they began to associate that power and success with the foreigners' ways. This eventually leads to the foreigners' ways being regarded as the better way and being held in a higher esteem than previous indigenous ways.

In much the same fashion, and with the same reasoning of better-ness, the colonised soon equates the foreigners' racial strain itself as being responsible for their superiority. The native soon strives to that strain to give their children a better standing in life than just their native genes.

The Spanish Empire

The former subjects of the Spanish Empire in Hispanic America and the Philippines are the most commonly cited examples where the phenomenon of colonial mentality may be found. Spanish conquistadors, the first European settlers in the New World, divided the conquered lands among themselves and ruled as feudal lords, treating their subjects as something between serfs and slaves: Amerindians and imported indigenous Africans (called black by Europeans) respectively. Some Spaniards, however, objected to this encomienda system, notably Bartolomé de Las Casas, who insisted that the indígenas (natives) were human beings with souls and rights. Serfs stayed to work the land and slaves were exported to the mines, where large numbers of them died. Largely due to the efforts of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the New Laws were adopted in 1542 to protect the Amerindians, but the abuses were not entirely or permanently abolished.

The Spaniards were committed to converting their Amerindian subjects to Roman Catholicism, and were quick to purge any native cultural practices that hindered this end. However, most initial attempts at this were only partially successful, as Amerindian groups simply blended Catholicism with their traditional beliefs. On the other hand, the Spaniards did not impose their language to the degree they did their religion, and the Catholic Church even evangelized in Quechua, Nahuatl and Guarani, contributing to the expansion of these Amerindian languages and equipping them with writing systems.

The Philippines

See also Ethnic groups of the Philippines.

In the Philippines colonial mentality is most evident in the widespread belief that favoritism exists for Filipino mestizos (primarily those of native Filipino and white ancestry, but also native Filipino and Chinese, and other ethnic groups) in the entertainment industry and mass media, in which they have received extensive exposure despite constituting the smallest minority in the country.

Of the current demographics of the Philippines, the combined number of all types of mestisos constitute no more than 2% of the entire Filipino population. Of that 2%, less than half are of the Spanish variety, while nearly all the rest of the population - constituting 98% and numbering over 80 million - is composed of unmixed native Filipinos. A recent study by Stanford University indicates that just 3.6% of the population has at least some European ancestry.

The biased favouritism responsible for their overwhelming presence in film and television is deeply-rooted on established Filipino "ideals of beauty" that are determined on the possession of partial European ancestry, an ideal that stems from colonial concepts first introduced by over 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, then by a further generation of United States occupation.

Physical consequences

One of the more adverse physical consequences in the idealization and acceptance of the racial concepts of colonial mentality can be seen in the high rate of consumer demand for skin bleaching products in the Philippines. Skin-whitening creams have for a long time been popular and widely used in much of the Philippines for the lightening of the skin tones of Filipinos - a South East Asian Austronesian people - which is inherently darker, in order to achieve the much desired, sought-after "Mestizo look". The products are used primarily by women who have succumbed to the Filipino ideal and colonial doctrine of the idealization of mestizo beauty to the greatest extreme. The consumers of these products, whether conscious or subconsciously, are following the dangerous edict on beauty by continuing to use those products despite the extremely hazardous side effects to their health, including a high risk of various cancers due to many of its active ingredients, including mercury. These products have been banned in the USA, but their sale and demand in the Philippines continues to be widespread.

Either way, despite the lightening of their skin tones, users of such products do not end up looking convincingly "European" or Caucasian due to the shape of their skulls and noses, which remain like that of the typical native Filipino. Some women even have nose lifts. It bears pointing out, however, that Southern Europeans themselves tend to have darker skin.

Pedigree and forgery

Colonial mentality is also at the root of a long established Filipino tradition of ethnic forgery used in the attempt to conform to the idealized mestizo pedigree dictated by the former colonial Filipino socio-racial hierarchy. They pass as other races.

This ethnic forgery is characterized by the habit of many Filipino families and individuals claiming mestizo status. It is often accompanied by handed-down oral accounts of a presumed Spanish great-great-grandfather or mestiza great-great-grandmother with no evidence other than a Spanish surname. However, unlike the people of the Hispanic world, of the millions of Spanish-surnamed Filipinos, very few families in the Philippines actually received their Spanish surnames from an actual Iberian ancestor. The overwhelming majority of Filipinos with Spanish surnames acquired them as a result of the Catálogo Alfabético de Apellidos ["Alphabetic Catalogue of Surnames"] decreed to be imposed on the entire Filipino population by the Spanish royal courts in order to facilitate record-keeping and tax collecting.

This preoccupation among Filipinos with identifying as anything other than Filipino also takes on a new form known as IMSCF Syndrome among Filipino Americans in North America and other western countries with expatriate Filipino communities.

Latin America

As in the Philippines, colonial mentality can also be seen in much the same form across Latin America. The demographic reality of Latin America is that half of its population is of part-white mixed race, either mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian) or mulatto (mixed white and black) or triracial (of mixed white, black and Amerindian), who together account for approximately 50% of the region's total population. A very large minority (perhaps 30%) of Latin Americans is of mainly European descent. Amerindians, Asians, Blacks, and zambos (mixed black and Amerindian) make up the remaining 20%. In the Latin American context, the "Ideal of Beauty" is not to be of mixed European and other ancestry - as most Latin Americans already are of that ancestry - but rather to be unmixed European.

In this instance, the Latin American entertainment industry is saturated with criollos (people of unmixed Spanish ancestry) or other Europeans, with few mestizos, fewer mulattos, and almost no unmixed blacks or Amerindians. In the Dominican Republic, a predominantly mulatto country, skin whitening products are also quite popular and readily available.

This European idealisation of beauty has also lead to a condition of ethnic forgery among many Latin Americans. However, in contrast to the Filipino experience where the majority is composed of unmixed native Filipinos of whom some attempt to claim mix-blooded status, in Latin America the norm is for some within the mix-blooded majority to concentrate on attempting to diminish, hide or deny any non-European admixture. These will then often falsely claim to be pure Spanish or other European in their attempts to conform to the idealized pedigree dictated by their Latin American socio-racial hierarchy. See also Passing - Race

A common joke in the United States, among both Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike, is the presence of more blonde and blue-eyed presenters on US-based Spanish language television networks such as Telemundo and Univisión than on the general public networks such as NBC or CBS. In Mexico the joke is made by suggesting the re-naming of media giant TV Azteca into "TV Blanca" (White TV), because in a country of over 100 million, where 60% is mestizo, 30% is Amerindian and 9% is unmixed European, almost every single presenter is an unmixed Spanish descendant or other European; there are few mestizos, and almost no natives after whom the network is supposedly named after, the Aztecs.

English-speaking societies

The Indian Subcontinent

Some critics claim that Rudyard Kipling's portrayals of Indian characters generally supported the colonialist view that the Indians and other colonised peoples were incapable of surviving without the help of Europeans, claiming that these portrayals are racist. Examples of this alleged racism are mentioning "lesser breeds without the Law" in "Recessional" and referring to colonised people in general as "half-devil and half-child" in the poem "The White Man's Burden".

United States of America; Black America

Examples included the practice of the "Paper Bag Test", where African-Americans were allowed or denied entry in Black-only social institutions (bars, night clubs, cinemas, sororities, fraternities, etc.) based on how light the skin tone was when compared to a brown paper bag. Those African-Americans with skin tones the same or lighter than the paper bag were allowed entry. This practice of institutionalized colorism, favoring degrees of "whiteness", was exemplified more so by "The Blue Vein Society".

The "Blue Vein Society"

When U.S. slavery was at its zenith, a mulatto society known as "The Blue Vein Society" came into being.

The original "Blue Veins" were organized in New England. Their primary objective was to establish and maintain "correct" social standards amongst a people whose social condition, by virtue of their white bloodlines, was almost unlimited.

An outsider suggested that one must show "Blue Veins" to be eligible for membership. This suggestion was readily adopted by those who were not of the favored few; and "The Blue Vein Society" has been known as such ever since.

Black is Beautiful

In the late 20th century, the "Black is Beautiful" movement sought to counteract the colonial mentality among African Americans by promoting dark skin and African features as ideals of high fashion.

The Arab world

Nada El-Yassir comments that "in certain areas in the Arab world, the lighter you are the more beautiful you are considered." She also says that it is common that women in the upper classes dye their hair blond. In some countries the implications of this hierarchy go so far as to affect one's social class and job opportunities.

There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with beauty ideals; all cultures have particular notions about what is aesthetically pleasing. Like other places, India and certain Arabic countries had their own culturally specific beauty ideals. However, these largely fell by the wayside after their encounters with colonial powers.

Iman Al-Jazairi says "Looking at Arabic poetry and novels, it is interesting to see that pre-Islamic poetry up until western colonization at the eighteenth century, women were always described as having long, wavy, black hair, brown skin, black eyes with the white of the eyes very white. The body proportions were also bigger. During the later part of the nineteenth century and until very recently, light skinned, blond women have usurped the beauty standard in modern Arabic literature.

The former Soviet Union

In some of the successor states of the former USSR much of the non-ethnic Russian population may see Russian culture as superior to the local ones. This is common for example in Ukraine, one of the more advanced successors. There is a marked preference for all things Russian and an overwhelming presence of the Russian language in politics, television, the internet, and music.

Quebec

The idea that a part of Quebecers hold a colonial mentality, due to the conquest of Quebec by the British and subsequent domination by English Canada is important in a segment of Quebecois intellectual thought, notably within the Quebec nationalist and independence movements. These thinkers portray the relationship of Canada and Quebec as a dominant-dominated relationship and often consider the Quiet Revolution an event of decolonization. Those who are in favour of independence hold that Quebec sovereignty is another necessary decolonizing step. The colonial mentality concept has also been used to criticize the relationship some Quebecers have with France, as Quebec was a colony of France in the era of New France.

See also

• Colonialism
• Colorism
• Cultural cringe
• IMSCF Syndrome
• Passing (Race)