Looking back at my childhood, antiblack/racist thoughts came before my ability to recognize race the way I do today. I want to say Western media made me think that way and by causation, sure, but conditioning is unconscious. I don’t remember watching much Pinoy television but I assume I did because living in the West, I wasn’t confused on how to work a TV. It came naturally and I don’t know where I learned it.

As someone with sensory overload and high perception, being introspective is a hobby. But psychology makes me uncomfortable because part of psychology is knowing that I don’t know. And most of it seems really obvious. Antiblack sentiment can be transferred via media and pop culture. I was obscenely antiblack as a child and as an adult still dredged in it, though obviously doing my best not to, I had to pick it up from somewhere but I can’t recognize where.

Part of it is probably neurosis as to why I can’t remember but also because it probably wasn’t obvious.

Now I wonder if my kids’ antiblackness, to whatever degree, is also by that unconscious conditioning or because things aren’t being labeled as they were anymore (aka racism being portrayed as an alternative way of thinking instead of being called racism).

How does a parent go about trying to guide their children in media when they as a child couldn’t recognize it either?