Hi, I’m REALLY mad right now at this stupid website so please bear with me.
A certain artist (based in the Philippines might I add) recently made a J.CO (Indonesian donut restaurant chain) gijinka recently, and people accused them of whitewashing their gijinka because the character’s skin was too bright. I, as an Indonesian, am seriously offended.
Not by the gijinka,
but by the masses of people who are being offended ON MY BEHALF FOR THE WRONG REASONS. The most insulting thing about this whole situation is that this website fucking auto-assumes that all brightly colored characters have been whitewashed and that this is always a bad thing and racist because of how things are in the West. Hi. Indonesia is not the United States. Indonesia is not a country in Europe. Indonesia is a multicultural society in Asia made up mostly of Southeast Asians, Melanesians, and East Asians. You can NOT apply the same exact sensitivities and narrative to Indonesia as you can in the West. …Let me give you a quick rundown:
Racism in Indonesia is not always about about a white skinned race oppressing a darker skinned race. If anything, it’s more to do with Xenophobia and Religion. Following up on that, here’s the shocker: The DISCRIMINATED MINORITY in Indonesia has a lighter skin color than the PRIVILEGED MAJORITY. East Asians, mostly Chinese, who generally have brighter skin tones than your regular Southeast Asian person, are regular targets of hate speech, discrimination, racism, and even a 1998 genocide that still strikes fear and opens up old wounds in their hearts upon mention. PLEASE GET THAT INTO YOUR DENSE SKULL. Indonesia has serious racial problems, but you can NOT automatically assume everything as from a western country perspective. To do so is seriously, seriously racist.
The intention was “right” from your perspective, but please. Do your research, and don’t automatically always assume that light skin is whitewashing. You’re touching on a VERY sensitive and often radically different subject depending on which nation you are talking about. It’s INSULTING to your fellow PoCs. I feel insulted. I feel like this website just made a unanimous decision for me because I’m either too “uneducated” “uninformed”, “tolerant” or WHATEVER the fuck you think of Indonesians to feel offended for myself. This website made me think that the Indonesian restaurant chain CAN ONLY be run by Southeast Asians when there are hundreds, if not thousands of East Asian J.CO employees whose lives and stories, and struggle against discrimination you’ve just invalidated just because of your westernized view of racism. AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, THE ARTIST YOU’RE MAD AT IS A PoC FROM THE SAME REGION AS INDONESIA THEMSELVES, (the Philippines) AN ARTIST WHO HAD NO INTENTION OF WHITEWASHING. WHO JUST SAW REALLY NICE COLORS THAT WORKED AND THOUGHT IT WAS COOL. WHO KNOWS FULL WELL THE STRUGGLE SOUTHEAST ASIA HAS HAD AGAINST EUROPE IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD. IT’S AS IF YOU’RE TRYING TO LECTURE A VICTIM ON WHY THEY SHOULD FEEL VICTIMIZED INSTEAD OF UNDERSTANDING OUR STORY. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, TUMBLR.
