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jakelafort posted an update 8 years ago
PEOPLE OF COLOR:
Is this an acceptable way to refer to non-Caucasians?
Perhaps you have not contemplated what is being conveyed in using the moniker, people of color. It is a way or distinguishing high’ranking from low. What else can it be? White is a color, right? Caucasians are not even white and in fact variegated in shade or pigment and yet excluded from the color-based label. There is no rational basis to exclude Caucasians.
Permitting the aforementioned fiction validates bigots/racists in conceiving coloreds as inferior. There is no way our lexicon ought to do that. It is as though white is the paradigm and the inferior people are debased in deviating from that standard with various colors-the worst of which is black, the stark opposite of white.
“Oh look little Johny but don’t stare. That is a colored or a person of color. We used to call em niggers but now we are so nice.”
I guess it evolved from “coloured people” – i.e. people who have been coloured in a special colour. So “people of colour” is more neutral emotionally.
I aint touching that one with a 5,000 meter long pole
This just happened to be a topic in one of my classes a couple of weeks ago. The term is similar to any racial term. They’re mostly cultural “constructs”, i.e. abstract, with little science to back up the claims. OTOH, I had a biology instructor who referred to various sub-species of animals as having scientifically measurable “racial” differences.
The larger context here is, as you allude to, what to call people who are not “white”, in the western european sense of people who have historically held power over people whom they consider to be unlike themselves, especially in appearance.
This is really a long topic to get into because it also touches on other touchy issues, including SJW-related controversies, but to summarize and simplify, this is an age-old imbalance of power issue, where the people with traditional power get to define language and write history, with or without the input of people not so much in power.
Damn, too much to say here, for sure!
Why is Obama “black”, when he has just as much white genery in him as black? The one-drop (of black blood) rule making someone non-white was only relatively recently discussed publically and made unacceptable.
Washington Redskins football team.
Why only blacks and close friends of blacks can say “nigger”. (OTOH it hit me only recently “what the hell gave gansta male blacks the right to call women hoes”? Artistic license, alone? Shit, shame on them anyway!)
And then there’s your “cultural appropriation” accusations, as if only one kind of culture has a right to their fashion statements or language.
BTW, I’m more of a cultural observer to all these customs and prejudices, and can usually understand what both sides of the conflicts are saying and how they feel. I was bragging to my instructor that I can often tell how long an asian’s been in this country by their body language, especially facial expressions, and (of course) how they speak our language. She refused to give me any brownie points for that, I think because it’s too easy to assume that the topic is just too risky to get into.