IT'S TIME TO BREAK UP WITH INTERNALIZED RACISM

You know the story. You've been in the relationship for such a long time, it's almost as if you can't live without them.

- IO CARPISO

Who even are you without them to define you? Where would you be if they hadn't saved you?

Aren't you silly thinking you could've saved yourself all those years ago—silly, stupid, undesirable you?

You defend them against your friends and family, saying that they're way better than they seem, that the way they "hurt" you was really how they loved you. When you think you've finally put your foot down, they hit you up just when you're about to leave. They draw you back in with promises too good to be true. They say you wouldn't survive a moment without them. The relationship has its deep, horrible, spine-curdling lows that wreck your self-worth, self-respect, and—god forbid—your health, but the highs make up for it, right?

Tall, dark, and alluring, colonialism has got you wrapped around its finger.

Like any toxic relationship, the consequences of colonialism are more insidious than just the overt signs of abuse (these can be stolen or capped finances, demands of undervalued labor and resources, an insecure home life, and violence).

They also include psychological and spiritual scars, leaving ex-colonies with hairline cracks in their psyche that could leave them crumbling.

E.J.R. David, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage, has spent his career studying internalized racism and colonial mentality in Filipinos and Filipino communities in the States. His research finds that even home-bound Filipinos are affected by a mentality that sees Filipinos as servants to colonial rulers like America, whom former colonies also admire.

Inflicted by internalized racism—an aspect of colonial mentality—and all its messages, people from former colonies absorb and model beliefs, ideas and behaviors that support their oppression. This form of self-harm is a byproduct of centuries of colonial abuse.