Quote Originally Posted by Mad_Dog
is it just me or is using the term "The Flip" a racist term for Filipinos? It was when I was younger, have things changed?

just asking cause I have seen it used a couple of times on this thread
well I would like to quote "I Am Not A Flip" by Moonie Lanton to answer your question. and i quote:
I was talking to a non-Filipino person one day and during our conversation he asked me, "Are you a Flip?" Am I a Flip... I've considered myself to be many things but I never really gave it any thought as to whether or not I was a Flip. For some reason, that term bothered me then and still bothers me now.

I wondered how this term "Flip" could have been derived as to be a nomer for Filipinos. The most plausible theory is that some people took the liberty to shorten the word Filipino by taking out a few letters and thus creating "Flip". If that is the case, can we refer to Germans as "Germs", Chinese as "Chins", or Japanese as "Japs"? From my experiences with my Chinese andJapanese friends, they would kill me if I ever refered to them as "Chins" or "Japs". But to many Pinoys, being called a Flip is acceptable.

I engaged into conversations with people that use the term Flip to refer to Filipinos. I posed them the question, "Doesn't that term seem a bit derogatory to you?" The best response I got was an analogy to the term "Nigga". Blacks took the racist term Nigger, adopted it in slang, reclaimed the term as Nigga, and now it seems to be acceptable. So the logic towards Flip is that since Blacks can make "nigga" an acceptable term, then it is okay for Filipinos to make "Flip" an acceptable term.

From what I'm getting, the term Flip is comparable to Jap, Chin, and Nigga. How come that does not sound so great? I even went as far as to do some research on the historical context of the term Flip as reference to Filipinos. From my research, I discovered that Pinoy Naval officers in the U.S. Navy were called Fils, Brown Monkeys, and FLIPS by white officers in order to degrade the Pinoys.

According to Webster's Dictionary, one definition of the word FLIP is that it is short for the word FLIPPANT, which means backwards and unimportant. Why do Pinoys insist upon using this negative term to define who we are. I think about our history and the people who fought for the pride of being a Filipino like Jose Rizal, Andres Bonafacio, Gabriella Silang, Carlos Bulosan, and Philip VeraCruz. We rioted in Watsonville, we shed blood versus the Spanish and the United States, we went on strike in the fields of Delano. Filipinos in the past have struggled and fought so that we could have what we have today. But of all the things they fought for, I don't think they wanted to fight to be known as Flips.

I am not and never considered myself a FLIP. I don't see any justification for the Black community to reclaim a racist term and I don't think the Filipino community should immitate that action. WE ARE FILIPINO, PILIPINO, PINOY, PINAY, but we are not FLIPS. So if you can't spell it out, or if you feel that it is too difficult to say all four syllables of the word FILIPINO, then don't bother claiming it as who you are. end quote.