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  • PopeBeanie posted an update in the group Group logo of The African and The Indigenous FreeThinkersThe African and The Indigenous FreeThinkers 2 years, 10 months ago

    @ysumlin Thank you for starting this group!
    As a non-African and non-Indigenous guy (and calling myself “white”), I’m interested in how you and others feel about use of the term “People of Color”. Out of respect for your intentions for this Group, I’ve not taken the liberty to create a topic about this in your Forum. In fact not seeing any topics there yet, I certainly don’t want to author the first topic there! So that’s why I’m writing this question to you here, in the Home section of your Group.

    If you’re interested in how my interest in the topic of the term People of Color came up with me, take a look at https://atheistzone.com/forums/topic/use-of-the-term-people-of-color-poc/

    Note that it is four pages in length, so I wouldn’t blame you if you feel you can’t spend the time reading it, or if you just want to do a quick skim of it. I don’t even expect a response to me. Quite coincidentally, this topic came to mind to me this morning, while listening to a San Francisco public radio station’s show with a black LA Times reporter as the primary guest, who used the term often.

    • Thanks Pope Beanie for your question, my reply is simply this in regards to the term People of Color. I did some research of the term before answering your question and this is why I have a late response. First of all I hate the term but I can find a common meaning because darkly pigmented humans represent all color hues of humans on this planet and it seems more inclusive than the term of i,e,”white people”. Skin colors used as a race for humans takes away the realities that all humans are just one species of Homo Sapiens living on earth today and we are not divided by skin colors and the small variants that differentiate us is 0.01 percent versus the 99.9 percent that we humans are more alike. than different. We have to look at the source of what got us here and thinking about skin colors as a race before we get confused by the term People of Color, which is “Scientific Racism” that gave birth to the caucasian and white race that was just a bad idea that worked it’s way into people accepting this construct as a fact rather than a myth. There’s no such thing as white people and yet you and others find this term non offensive or disturbing, but instead you ask me about the term People of Color and it appears you don’t have an idea of where white people come from. I am both a Scientist and a Historian and I say this because I examine things as they occur in our natural world and the recorded laws that bares evidence of it’s facts, not opinion.
        • The figure I had seen in _Discover Magazine_ in 1994 was that the only genetic difference between any two human beings anywhere is like 0..064 of 1 percent. The figure may have since changed with the complete mapping of The Human Geneome, but basically, we are literally talking about molecules here. Yet to hear some people talk, that is all that matters.
          • @ysumlin, thank you for responding and putting time into researching.
            I understand and agree with all you’re saying except “There’s no such thing as white people and yet you and others find this term non offensive or disturbing, but instead you ask me about the term People of Color and it appears you don’t have an idea of where white people come from.”
            I do understand where humans came from pretty well. And I’m perfectly fine not calling you a person of color if that’s what you wish, while I hear and read many other people, African-American or black or whatever moniker or category chosen or not chosen calling themselves “people of color”, and I respect their choice. Jumping to the core of why such terms matter and their acceptance or rejection matters does of course require knowledge of history, but also knowledge of how people themselves who are affected by that usage feel about that usage. I’m seeing good people with good intentions, using that term, even when speaking of themselves. Its usage is *very* common now, even among people to whom it would matter the most.
            Again, I respect your choice and insight, and wholeheartedly want to fight against prejudice, and am happy with educating people on our terrible history that includes (as Jake is especially educated about) shameful historic usage of the term.
            I do not believe in any “superior” race or human, nor even any pre-humans or animals, but I do strongly believe in educating or pushing back against any human or group that does believe in any such hierarchies.
              • That was too long, and cannot be edited. Long story short, I absolutely and especially appreciate your opinion this, while I’m still in the camp of calling people what they choose to call themselves, rather than what other people choose to call them.
            • PopeBeanie, If one really wanted to get pedantic, everyone is ndigenous to wherever they were born and everyone is foreign to wherever they weren’t. 😁😉
                • True. I think most people don’t understand what genetic drift, the founding effect, and the original gene pool means. The more diversity you have in a certain area this indicates the original gene pool this is what makes all of the other arguments that humans comes from any other place other than Africa mute, simply because Africa is the most diverse continent in the world. This is the real home of all humans but we can claim our birth of origin as natives or Indigenous anything but skin colors which has nothing to do with the human race, just natural selection and health issues based on our interactions with UV-Radiation and nothing more.
                  • @Enco I’m not interested in being pedantic, but in how personal opinion of usage varies, because of, in spite of, or regardless of its historic usage, while cultures and language usage evolves. This is not an exact science, and much of it is just plain unpredictable, even in spite of anyone’s strong opinions about what’s “appropriate”… for better or for worse, and rarely resulting in static perfection.