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Colonial mentality is a cultural notion of inferiority sometimes seen amongst populations previously subjugated and colonsed by foreign entities.
Origins
When a colonial power is strong, and cannot be effectively resisted, often a population may have to simply accept the rule of the foreigners as an inescapable reality. As time progresses, these colonised natives will sometimes procede to mimic the foreigners in power as they begin to perceive the "foreign way" of doing things and acting as different, and since the foreigner is also in power, the foreign way comes to be seen as the "better way". The foreign way is then held in a higher esteem than previous native ways.
In much the same fashion and with the same reasoning of "better-ness", the colonised soon equates the foreigner's racial strain itself as being superior to the native strain. The native soon strives to "marry up" and give their children a better standing in life than just their native genes.
Examples of Colonial Mentality
Colonial Mentality in The Philippines
In the Philippines colonial mentality is most evident in the biased favouritism for Filipino mestizos (mixed Caucasian/Malay or Chinese/Malay) in the entertainment industry and mass media which they have saturated disproportionately despite being the smallest minority in the counrty.
Of the current Philippine demographics; Caucasian-based mestizos account for only 1%, those with significant amounts of Chinese ancestry to be classified as Chinese-mestizos are estimated at around 2%, while unmixed native Filipinos constitute 95% and number over 80 million.
The biased favouritism responsible for their overwhelming presence in film and television is deeply-rooted on established Filipino "Ideals of Beauty" that are determine based on the possession of at least 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 Anglo-American occupation.
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 pedigree dictated by the former colonial Filipino socio-racial hierarchy. This ethnic forgery is characterized by the habit of many Filipino families and individuals of handing 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, none but a few families in the Philippines actually bequeathed 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 enitre Filipino population by the Spanish royal courts in order to facilitate record-keeping and tax collecting.
This preocupation 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.
Colonial Mentality in Latin America
Colonial mentality can also be seen in much the same form across Latin America. However, despite there existing a large minority (30%) of Latin Americans of unmixed Spanish ancestry, the demographic reality of Latin America is that much of its population is comprised of a majority that is either mestizo (Caucasian/Amerindian) or mulatto (Caucasian/Black) that together account for approximately 50% of the total population.
In the Latin American context, the "Ideal of Beauty" isn't to be of mixed European and other ancestry - as most Latinos are this - but rather to be unmixed European. Here the Latin American entertainment industry is saturated with Spanish Creoles and consists of very few mestizos, basically no mulattos, and much less unmixed Blacks or Amerindians.
This 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 Malays of whom some attempt to claim mix-blooded status, in Latin America mixed European and other ancestry is the norm, so the Latin American forgery will concentrate on the attempt to diminish or hide any non-European admixture. These will then often falsely claim to be pure Spanish 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 presentors 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 "T.V.Azteca" into "T.V.Blanca" [WhiteTV], because in a country of over 100 million, where 60% is mestizo, 30% Native American and 9% European, almost every single presentor is a Spanish-descended European, with almost no mestizos and absolutely no natives after whom the network is suposedly named after, the Aztecs.
Colonial Mentality in the USA (the African-American experience)
In the the United States, when disserting on the colonial mentality experience in the African-American community, the concept would more correctly be referred to, and is more commonly known, as Slave Mentality. Although the latter term serves as a synonym of the very same concept of colonial mentality, the differing appelation is used to placed emphasis on the root of the mentality. The prior being a result of colonization of indigenous natives, and the latter originating from the slavery experience of Africans transported to the new world.
Though not as widely practised or institutionalized, slave mentality was once common among African-Americans. During the years of sturggle of the American Civil Rights Movement, the discrimination and mentality of "White is Right" of whites against blacks was well known and practiced, however, many of these concepts had also been adopted by people of colour. Here, the discriminated and discriminators were all people of colour.
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) based on how light the skin tone was when compared to a brown paper bag. Those Blacks with skin tones of same colour or lighter than the paper bag were allowed entry.
See also
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