rant on the term "people of color"

[Juncoph]

today a girl in my social studies class called sandra cisneros a person of color, and afterwards the teacher started using the term too

let me tell you why "person of color" pisses me off- and this isn't even mentioning the fact that i thought we were past the era of whites vs non-whites and calling black ppl colored ("i'm not saying down syndrome people are handicapped people, i'm saying they're people of handicapation!")

sandra cisneros is hispanic.

the primary cultural ancestor of the hispanics are the spaniards.

the spaniards were not buddy-buddy with native americans, asians, or the africans that they imported as slaves to the new world.

lumping the hispanic ethnicity in with everything else that isn't euro-american completely disregards history. ironically, it disregards an entire chapter of white colonialism and imperialism, despite the people who use the term PoC usually being critical of whites oppressing non-whites.

it turns an honest conversation into "us vs them".

 my father is a cuban immigrant. i am considered a person of color. i hate the loving term so much. my cultural heritage is not intertwined with ethnic african-americans, japanese-americans, chinese-americans, etc.

and what about the other historically distrusted minorities? are jews people of color? are slavic immigrants? where do you draw this handicapped line?

it just pisses me off and saddens me that we've literally regressed to using an ignorant and tribal term for the sake of political correctness. and i'm not a whiney whitey. remember, i count as a PoC

EDIT: fixed cisneros's first name, no clue where i got julia from

[Ad Bot]

[Electrk²]

they get to use the special water fountains

[Juncoph]

they get to use the special water fountains

"we're using these fountains in our stand against white oppression. whites will have to use their own fountains!"

[Corderlain]

Just call everyone darkies. Works great.

[Tactical Nuke]

I found this a week or so ago and just had to ‘share it’…lol How true is this…lol

Written by an African child and nominated by The United Nations
as the Best Poem of 2006.

And you calling me colored??

When I born, I black.
When I grow up, I black.
When I go in sun, I black.
When I scared, I black.
When I sick, I black.
And when I die, I still black.

And you white people.
When you born, you pink.
When you grow up, you white.
When you go in sun, you red.
When you cold, you blue.
When you scared, you yellow.
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you grey…

And you calling me colored??

[otto-san]

language is weird lol. i don't really know why poc was what people settled on but i imagine it was a form of reclamation if at all related to the dated terminology of "colored"

[Juncoph]

language is weird lol. i don't really know why poc was what people settled on but i imagine it was a form of reclamation if at all related to the dated terminology of "colored"

so why's it being used on people like me too

[Tactical Nuke]

it shouldn't be used at all

everyone has color ffs, this isn't sin city

[otto-san]

so why's it being used on people like me too

i haven't heard anyone describe ted cruz as a PoC so idk

it shouldn't be used at all

everyone has color ffs, this isn't sin city

race is still a relevant social construct and it gives context to a lot of conflicts and problems from the past and present. it's literally not an option to remove racial concepts from our cultures, and so we can't remove them from our language either. but we do change how we represent those concepts in language, and this is just another transformation in that regard

[Juncoph]

i haven't heard anyone describe ted cruz as a PoC so idk
race is still a relevant social construct and it gives context to a lot of conflicts and problems from the past and present. it's literally not an option to remove racial concepts from our cultures, and so we can't remove them from our language either. but we do change how we represent those concepts in language, and this is just another transformation in that regard

1. how many ppl who use the term poc do you think know cruz is anything other than canadian, wealthy, and republican

2. i agree that race is still relevant, if only as a result of historical racism. the way i see it, we've created a deep, culturally ingrained class issue out of a historical racial issue- if a broke black detroitian gets the education he needs, he could absolutely rise above and become the last working-class generation of his family (save money-> get kids college fund-> son becomes engineer, daughter becomes medical doctor, etc)

edit: i'm not trying to say poor people should just work harder, i'm saying they need help to know how to properly work, if that makes sense, because how are you supposed to make a grappling hook if nobody teaches you how to make rope?

[Nonnel]

The words majority and minority correlate with white and not white in most of the Western world, though, so I don't see why we need "POC" to replace that. Majority and minority aren't tribal and are even more flexible since you can use them in countries where white people are the minority or are being persecuted or something.

[RedGajin]

im assuming it's probably only used in the west and prolly started being used back when it literally was whites vs everyone else and it's just stuck around

[Drydess]

the only time you should ever be held to using that term is on official business

[Juncoph]

im assuming it's probably only used in the west and prolly started being used back when it literally was whites vs everyone else and it's just stuck around

yeah but back then calling non-whites colored was a slur

[Nonnel]

I'm guessing like 70s or 80sish POC came around. Still racial problems going on but more social awareness of it.