Bringing the Marginalized into Conversations about American Raciality - Erin Kane - Keely Gaeta - Emily Norris

Filipino Bodies, Lynching, and the Language of Empire by Nerissa Balce

This political cartoon is depicting Uncle Sam, representing America, chasing after a Filipino man with the hope of capturing him and colonizing him. This blatantly racist cartoon is conveying the message that America is willing to fight and chase after the Philippines, due to their important geopolitical location. The Filipino man is depicted as savage and underdeveloped while Uncle Sam is dressed in his typical sophisticated attire, illustrating America’s belief that the Philippines were in desperate need of their assistance; depicting the filipino man as savage-like allowed America to legitimize their reason for colonization. Europe looming in the background is meant to convey America’s urgency to colonize the Philippines. The United States believed if they waited too long, the European powers would capture the territory and America wanted to “protect” the filipinos from the European predators, as if America was much better.

Uncle Sam, who has packed many colonizing tools, is traveling to colonize the Philippines where a filipino man anxiously awaits America’s arrival. After America won the Philippine- American War, the Philippines had an optimistic outlook on their future; they believed they were going to be independent, but they quickly realized they simply had new colonizers. Of the many tools Uncle Sam is carrying, he is holding a book with “education and religion” written on it and this was an effort to rid any Spanish influence from the Philippines and it was an effort to uplift, christianize, and democratize Filipinos. America aimed to “benevolently colonize” the Philippines, as stated by former President WilliamMcKinley in his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation. This proclamation was dependent on American superiority because in order to benevolently colonize, America must have held the belief that they would be able to help another nation because what America has was so much better; the notion of Manifest Destiny was being transferred to the concept of colonization.

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