< hmmm... >

   I don't know why people get so offended over matters that concern "race."  In anthropology (I'm an anthropologist by training), "race" is no longer used: the tripartite classification of "Negroid," "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid" are, for all intents and purposes, obsolete.  The concept of "race" is more political: it is a means of establishing identity by skin color, common ancestry, and physical features.

   With all the Al Sharptons, Claire Daneses and Don Imuses of this world, it sometimes becomes bothering that every remark that's made at "another race" always has to be construed as "offensive."  I was bloghopping today when I read all these Filipino blogs saying that Teri Hatcher of "Desperate Housewives" was "racist."  In the show, her character Susan Mayer remarked, "OK, so before we go further, can I check those diplomas?  'Coz I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines."

   Surely, we Filipinos have had it up to here with being synonyms for "househelp" and for having Hollywood actresses like Claire Danes complain that the Philippines is full of cockroaches and reek of the smell of unwashed feet.  But "racist?"  I don't think so.

   I think we're taking "political correctness" to its illogical extreme.  I can't even use the word "gay" anymore without having to anticipate the (very near) possibility of gay-rights groups accusing me of homophobia, while comedy bar hosts use the term "bakla" so many times in their routines.  While hip-hop artists blurt out "nigger" at least a half-dozen times in every song, a person who says "nigger" in public is likely to be the poster boy of "backwardness" in America.  Back when I worked for the school paper, I can't use the word "ass" (be it donkeys or the general anatomy of the buttocks) because "it's offensive," but the same thing does not apply for genuinely offensive "kabaklaan" in blind items.  The word "prostitute" has given way to the more "gender-sensitive" term, "commercial sex worker."  But mention the possibility of common non-engendered bathrooms and you'll be cruisin' for a bruisin'.  Girls shriek at the sight of a Sikh in a turban, and we flee at the sight of a "Bombay" riding a scooter come payday.  Get my point?

   The same holds true for "racism:" it's as if we should always find ourselves in the privileged position that we are and should be beyond reproach.  As it seems, "political correctness" is relative to whose politics, and who is correct.  Look at it this way: other people cast stones, other people cast bread, and we all cry in shame and indignation as if our whole lives depended on casting bread and stones.  You have an entire school of American political science that calls Islam a "bloody religion," you have entire nations that proclaim "Death to America," and they both consider each other "racist."  What more for an American daytime drama actress?

   I'm not condoning truly offensive comments, nor am I coddling genuinely offensive people.  But one remark made in a TV show is another thing: it's not as if Teri Hatcher genuinely intended to give another black eye to the Philippine medical profession.  I won't call that "racist" at all: I would see undertones and explications of colloquial "racism" in hospitals that refuse to treat indigenous indigent patients.  I would see undertones and explications of colloquial "racism" in Korean-owned Internet cafés that overcharge, or refuse to serve, Filipinos.  One very brief remark from a TV show that not too many Filipinos watch (owing to the crap that is "Zaido:" there, I said it) and people call for a boycott.

   Besides, we all fall into the common ethical tar-pit of judging people by the color of their skin or from where they came from, as if it made all the difference in the world.  In effect, we all have been "racist" at one point in our lives.  In this day and age, if the world pays heed to an elementary school student who says that the "Filipino race" descended from "waves of migration" and the "Filipino blood" is a mixture of "foreign blood" (Pygmy Negroid, Indonesian, Malay, Chinese, Arab, Indian, Spanish, American, Japanese... I hope I got it right), said student is "racist."

   I say, let's get to the more important things in our lives.  After all, if our whole future as a nation will rest upon the comments of a Teri Hatcher, we do deserve every "racist" comment we could get.