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blancitude

11/30/2014

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 Franz Fanon didn’t mean us when in Wretched of the Earth, he wrote of “individuals without anchor, without horizon, colorless, stateless, rootless, a race of angels.”  We weren’t wretched or stateless, but weren’t we aimless, without anchor, horizon, root?

What is benevolent imperialist "white love"? And the love we receive, who is its target? Children of America’s Blue Seal Coca Cola power, kids playing white-skin-brown-mask.  Does it count, this angst as a postcolonial tax?

We, young girls growing up in public, privileged with whiteness when we'd rather disappear. For public space, the public face. Sometimes we're not Manila Girls. We're just missionary kids and I'm not hybrid, but a monstrous postcolonial invasive species.​ The blight of blancitude, the rage of angels.

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    Kerry (Kathryn) Poethig

    We were "fraternal kids", Americans in the Philippines from Magsaysay to Marcos. I thought our story needed elaboration.

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