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this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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askchapo
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POC. Idk if this counts exactly since it started with bigotry then was reclaimed/euphemized
The part that bothers me is that it feels a little like I'm still being called a "colored person" just in a different phrasing, and later on, in abbreviation. I still call myself brown, white people as white, etc. without issue.
So I think it's more that brown people have always known ourselves to be brown, but not "colored" — that is a slur used by white people against us. Like in our native languages we have a concept of skin shade. But not "coloredness"
Also "POC" sounds a little weird to me, like how saying "people of brownness" or POB feels artificial and awkward.
Not really against "POC" though since people use it broadly already.
irl I usually see POC or BIPOC used in three ways:
Someone is pissed and wants to weaponize their or someone else's identity and not think any deeper than "you just did a racism becauss that person you criticized? Yeah they're BIPOC". That someone is almost always a liberal and the person in question is usually being validly criticized.
HR types talking about their DEI program.
The nicest and most empathetic lefty on the planet is trying their very best to be inclusive while organizing.
I also try to just say brown or black etc it's just so much less awkward.
yeah, when POC started becoming more mainstream i did feel a little weird saying it.
I'm back to saying black and brown folx. If there's a group that refers to themselves as BIPoC I use that, but not really as a means to describe people. It's very vague as an acronym.
Speaking of, it's always been odd to me that race is a totally made up construct and yet black and brown are okay and yellow and red are racist.
I appreciate it tried to come from a supportive place, but I feel like any term that groups an entire range of people as being a single label is going to be inherently problematic. As opposed to just using an adjective to describe a human, it turns people into something else. It's an important but subtle lingual distinction between describing one part of you, and ascribing your entire existence as beholden to that one part of you.
If I'm a person who likes beans, I'm still a human being with many other complex dimensions to learn about. If I'm a "Beanlover" then people suddenly assume they know everything about me, and I can be separately thought of and judged from the rest of the population.
I mean I am a bean lover, but that's beside the point.