CHOCOLATE ON THE OUTSIDe 

The biggest tactical blunder committed by Emilio Aguinaldo in the Philippine Revolution was to believe the assurances of US officials that their government would recognize Philippine Independence "under the protection of the mighty and humane North American Nation.” To him this made conceptual sense, given the history of US as a democratic country borne of its own anti-colonial revolution against the British. Such a major miscalculation must have been based on an assumption many Filipinos still make today: Aguinaldo thought he was white.

Had Aguinaldo seen himself as the Indio that he was, he would have understood that America never followed through on any agreement made with Indians. Treaty after treaty between the US and the Native Americans were unilaterally abrogated through conquest, massacres, genocide, land grabbing, reservations, forced relocation, and the Trail of Tears. In fact, the entire American colonial occupation had racist underpinnings, from the creation of whites-only areas to the award of independence to pander to the desire of Depression-era Americans to include Filipinos in the immigration ban against Asiatics.

So, you'd think that with all this history, Filipinos would understand the concept of racism. But the truth is that we still mostly think that we are a papaya soap shower away from showcasing our true pale complexion.