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PHL one of the most 'racially intolerant' countries, survey shows
Senator-elect Nancy Binay was perhaps the most vilified national candidate in the May 13 elections.
She was attacked most viciously not on her thin credentials or refusal to debate her opponents, but on the chocolate color of her skin.
The repeatedly retweeted fixation on her skin color caused distressed soul-searching among the more liberal Pinoy cognoscenti on social media.
Now comes an article in the Washington Post that names the Philippines as among the world's least racially tolerant countries.
She was attacked most viciously not on her thin credentials or refusal to debate her opponents, but on the chocolate color of her skin.
The repeatedly retweeted fixation on her skin color caused distressed soul-searching among the more liberal Pinoy cognoscenti on social media.
Now comes an article in the Washington Post that names the Philippines as among the world's least racially tolerant countries.
It reports on the "World Values Survey" which shows that, ironically, racial tolerance was low in racially-diverse Asian countries such as the Philippines.
"Nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where many racial groups often jockey for influence and have complicated histories with one another, showed more skepticism of diversity. This was also true, to a lesser extent, in China and Kyrgyzstan. There were similar trends in parts of sub-Saharan Africa," it said.
UK's Daily Mail noted that the survey bunched the Philippines with France, Turkey, Bulgaria, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Zambia, Thailand, and Malaysia in the 20 to 39.9% bracket.
It said this means 20 to 39.9 percent of individuals surveyed in these places "would not want a person of another race as a neighbor."
But the most "intolerant" appeared to be from India, Jordan, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong, where 40-plus percent would not want a person of another race as neighbor.
Some 30 to 39.9 percent of people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea have a similar attitude.
In contrast, the most tolerant countries in the survey were:
(0 to 4.9%): United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Australia, New Zealand(5 to 9.9%): Chile, Peru, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Belarus, Croatia, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa(10 to 14.9%): Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Slovakia(15 to 19.9%): Venezuela, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Macedonia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Russia, China.
The Washington Post said the survey asked respondents in more than 80 countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors.
However, the Washington Post also pointed out the survey may have its flaws, as it is "entirely likely" that some people lied when answering this question.
"But the operative question, unanswerable, is whether people in certain countries were more or less likely to answer the question honestly. For example, while the data suggest that Swedes are more racially tolerant than Finns, it’s possible that the two groups are equally tolerant but that Finns are just more honest," it said.
Also, it said the survey is not conducted every year, and some of the results could be recent and some several years old.
The survey also showed that:
- Anglo and Latin countries are most tolerant, except for oil-rich Venezuela, where income inequality sometimes breaks along racial lines, and the Dominican Republic, perhaps because of its adjacency to troubled Haiti. Scandinavian countries also scored high.
- India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant.
- There is a "wide, interesting variation" across Europe.
- The Middle East is not so tolerant.
- South Korea is not very tolerant, although it is rich, well-educated, peaceful and ethnically homogenous.
- Pakistan is remarkably tolerant, but is an outlier.
But back to Nancy Binay. The virulent reaction to her skin color is probably less connected to racial intolerance than a kind of reverse racism. Most Filipinos share her skin color, including perhaps the many who tweeted unkind words about her brown complexion. – TJD/HS, GMA News
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