So our daughter was born the other day...

...and already, people are imposing European standards of beauty upon her! Goddamn them all to bloody hell.

Eight days ago, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. We thought she was perfect... until we had an Internet video conference with my in-laws in the Philippines. That's when we learned that she looks too Filipino to be perfect.

All they did was scrutinize the poor kid through the webcam, criticizing the lack of a fold in her eyelids, poking fun at her flat, flared nose and expressing disgust at her not-so-pale complexion. They even asked us to turn our kid from side to side just to see how high the bridge on her nose was! It was pathetic, almost comical.

And it's not just the in-laws who are this pathetic. Filipinos are sick, sick people. Pretty much any Filipino you'll ever meet is blindly ignorant of their self-denigrating approach to beauty. Growing up, my mother instructed me to pinch my nose regularly so that it would grow "narrow" and "tall," not wide and flat. For a race of brown, flat-nosed, slant-eyed people, it's astounding to see how we Filipinos can be so vigilant about upholding the Nazis' eugenic standards of Aryan purity.

It just breaks my heart to think that Filipinos, of all people, would see our daughter as less beautiful by virtue of her Filipino features. It would be nice if we could raise her in a world where her Filipino features (narrow eyes, brown skin, flat nose) would not get in the way of her confidence and self-esteem. But it's ironic that despite the progress made in maintaining civil rights and racial equality, it is often our own internalization of Western standards of beauty that allows our special racial characteristics to get in the way of our own confidence and self-esteem.

Sure, I've complained about this self-denigrating racism among Filipinos before. I've written volumes on the subject, addressed it in my poetry readings, even shot a satirical film about it. But I'm a father now, and it bothers me even more now than ever before. Seems that striving for whiteness is such a huge part of what it means to be a Filipino (and Filipino-American too), so much so that when I confront them about it, they look at me like I'm some mad lunatic. Like I should want nothing more than to be a white, round-eyed Caucasian. Just pick up any Philippine entertainment magazine and you'll see what I mean. No one in those magazines looks even remotely Filipino. It's all lily-white maidens and their round-eyed lovers with toothy grins, and ads for Eskinol skin whitening products.

I know that we're not the only ones who beat ourselves up by virtue of our special racial characteristics. I'm well aware of the light-skin preference amongst many African-Americans. And it disgusts me that people in Africa and Latin America have even suffered mercury poisoning from the skin whitening creams they slather on their bodies in their quest for whiteness. What disgusts me even more is how ophthalmologists worldwide continue to make a killing from the Asians who think that blepharoplasty is their ticket to beauty and social acceptance. It's a new brand of slavery, and it has very grave consequences! Why do we do this to ourselves? What can we do about it?

We all know that our minds have been infected by global pop culture and the mass media. We also know that producers of such media continue to produce content which lacks positive, accurate portrayals of people of color because WE CONTINUE TO CONSUME such media! How do we mitigate the demand for such inherently racist media? How do we inoculate our children from the lure of such pop culture?

I think I have the solution, but first I'd like to hear some of your thoughts. Do you come from a family of self-denigrating white supremacists? If so, how in the world do you deal with them? How do you deal with these issues when it comes to your children?