Ah, nothing beats the love of Filipinos for basketball. Every street corner in this country has a ring nailed to a board for orange balls to pass through them. Manny Pacquiao's brand of boxing is only second to this sport. The typical Pinoy assumption about someone who's athletic is that he/she is playing basketball. Football may be the world's most popular sport, but it only existed here when Azkals acquired the Younghusbands into the team (methinks). So when Gilas Pilipinas got in the FIBA Asia Championships, all we can do was rejoice and let #pinoypride cloud our minds.
I don't really follow sports in general. I only watch when something's too hyped up to be an important national event--or probably, if teams from my university are playing. I am not here to comment on the gameplay neither because, obviously, this is not a sports blog. As much as I hated to write about it, all I wanted to talk about was the disgusting behavior of people that have made their way into my Facebook and Twitter newsfeed. This is me giving a stink-eye to all the people who posted Puso vs Putok throughout.
Thing is, we didn't lose due to their smelly aura nor did they threat the players with bombings had they not won the game: we lost because they're athletically-superior to us. They are much taller (Hello, Haddadi) and probably had more training. We don't get to be more mabango and more peace-loving when we call them these things either.
Thing is, we didn't lose due to their smelly aura nor did they threat the players with bombings had they not won the game: we lost because they're athletically-superior to us. They are much taller (Hello, Haddadi) and probably had more training. We don't get to be more mabango and more peace-loving when we call them these things either.
Our parents may have taught us that if we didn't behave, the bumbays may capture us for all eternity and not the local syndicates. If Middle Easterners are mentioned, our elders would mention 'mabaho' to encapsulate their whole being-- and not adjectives such as 'smart', 'nice' or 'talented'. There's a plethora of other examples that I can give for our blatant racism, but it would probably take a whole day for me to list them all down, but my point here is this: We don't need to believe what they think. We are our own person and we don't need to agree to everything that older people had to say. If you're able to post these on the Internet, then chances are, you're privileged enough to receive some sort of formal education. Your parents sent you to school to improve our society in some way. As much as you wouldn't want our technology to be stuck at what we have now, we must also want this for our value systems. This means that we all must discard this racist schmuck that's filling our reality.
I admit that I am not perfectly politically-correct nor am I a hundred-percent unprejudiced. I am human, yo! I have been in some way conditioned to think as the other to be subpar or even better than me based on their race alone. But because I see my self as a civilized human being, I try as much as possible to go beyond these things. If I can't then I keep it to myself--but I still treat you with respect as long as you deserve mine. I do not think that airing out these racist sentiments would make you cool. Not all people have the same five-year-old mindset as you. If your intention was to be funny, then you can bring comic relief in some other way. And this whole thing applies to sexist, ableist and classist jokes too.
We get butthurt every time people from another nationality than ours comment about how icky we are. I could just imagine the reactions of Pinoys when they find out how much the Iranians made fun of how small our athletes are--and of course, how glitchy-stupid the shot clock went. LOL.
