"person of color" really bugs the hell out of me

"Colored person" is totally off limits, and rightfully so. But isn't "person of color," semantically, the exact equal of that phrase? I would never call a black person "colored." But isn't calling someone a "person of color" the exact same thing? It's a little thing that just drives me up the wall.

:P

:)

after him it will be a long time before we have another white male at the helm in our Whitehouse. Irregardless of what the msm says this man is a man of the people with good American red blood coursing through his veins just like me.

I doubt the white-male-president drought will be that long, though.

Depends on who you ask. Any descriptor has a few people that are uncomfortable with it.

Used quite often, even here.

I think the term is pretty silly, and only use it if I think it is going to really annoy a wingnut. :P

Like, "women of color are the fastest growing population of new HIV infections". I mean, it's the sort of thing you hear/read in reports and other "official" contexts. I don't know that anybody uses it in normal speech, just like nobody actually uses "proactive" but it still gets printed all the time.

Semper Fi!

Particularly "women of color"; it's an attempt to be both terse and non-offensive when describing common aspects of the non-white experience.

My mother would always used that term and I have a friend from Iowa who is 70 and uses it.

I can remember seeing a tv show from the 1960 (?) that I think was called "Julia" which was the name of the title character who was a black woman and a nurse. She wanted to go to work for this old doctor (a real curmudgeon) who had not yet met her and when she talked with him on the phone she mentioned that she was colored. His reply was something like, "Really? What color are you?" and you knew that he understood exactly what she meant and it made no difference to him.

Yeah, that was a show starring Diahann Carroll. They showed it on TvLand, back when TvLand was a really awesome channel. Not like now.

green!

definately

Welcome to DU! :hi:

you know the "white" and the "colored" drinking fountains and such. It is a term that's used by a few older people, they don't mean it offensively though

Black is also acceptable although when most look at me they have a habit of asking the "silly" question of what I'm "mixed" with.

Best to let just roll with whatever term that particular person prefers to call themselves.

that makes the difference (theoretically)

Person (of color), Person (with a disability), etc. The reference is to a person, not the secondary label attached to that person.

I don't know that I agree with the theory, but that is what some people with disabilities have told me is the reasoning. (and here: http://www.txddc.state.tx.us/resources/publications/pfanguage.asp ) If I have to use a label I try to use the one the individual tells me he or she prefers.

I've never come across an actual person that told me they wanted to be called a person of color. But then, I've never called a person I met a colored person (or a person of color), either.

although most of those conversations were a number of years ago.

We are people first.

What I really hate is "THE" anything.

I think I'll start referring to bigots as persons of non-color, because saying 'white' just lumps us caucasians all onto the same pile of putrid shit as they're on.

There are plenty of non-white bigots to ya know.

A little defensive aren't ya?

Please don't blame on defensiveness. It's denseness. Too early, I didn't get it.

Still love me? (you're supposed to snicker here).

It's pretty well-established that the latter is more polite than the former. "Colored person" seems to imply that "colored" defines the person totally; "person of color" seems to imply that the person is, well, a person first, and happens to be of non-majority skin color.

I think you said it better than I did downthread. :)

Sid

Because "person with autism" implies that it is separate from who I am. Many of us on the spectrum greatly dislike the "with Autism/Asperger's Syndrome" language.

black singularly. I always thought it was a classification for anyone that was not caucasian. It's not a term I use, I think it is kind of awkward.

It replaces "minority"

It's stupid in several ways.

First, "white" is a color. What this term is saying, basically, is that white people aren't defined by their color, but everybody else gets to be defined by "color."

Second, it's ambiguous. Aside from the fact that everybody has a color (making "person of color" a meaningless term), "of color" doesn't tell you anything but "non-white." Well, then, why don't we just say "non-white"? Or black, brown, beige, etc. if we want to be specific.

Third, yes it does mean exactly the same semantically as "colored person." Just because people have decided to accept this as a polite term doesn't make its implications (point 1 above) any less offensive.

I know this is going to seem minor, but the difference between the two is the emphasis.

Coloured person emphasizes coloured.
Person of colour emphasizes the person.

It's an effort to recognize the person, not the description. Person with diabetes, rather than diabetic. Person with cancer, not cancer patient. (in no way am I trying to equate that skin colour and medical condition are equivalent, but those are the examples that came to mind first)

Some might see it as political correctness gone awry, but it's usually a genuine effort to realize that we're all just people with differences.

Sid

I still find it perfectly acceptable to call a person "black", for example, though I will use "African American" in many formal circumstances (e.g. a research paper.)

Most of it is based on intent and being plugged in to the dialogue.

Colored and Negro were just unacceptable to her. My family has been calling itself African-American since the late '60s. Defining one's self is the key and intent makes all the difference.

Person of color does not bring with it the baggage of "colored people."

there are many recent immigrants from Africa living in the US.

'Black', like 'white' is merely descriptive. All 'whites' are 'white', but not necessarily of the same race. Someone from Scotland, Switzerland or an Ashkenazy are all white but not of the same race.

Many from places such as the Dominican Republic think of themselves as Latin or Dominican, not 'African-American'.

of "colored people." People from the Dominican Republic have every right to call themselves whatever they like. People of color, I like because it puts us all with some African and/or Native blood as non-Whites, without the negative intent that was used in calling us "colored."

My point in saying African-American is that my parents did not like being regulated as a color, and A-A was/is how we chose to define ourselves. If a white person could call themselves an Irish-American, German American, et cetera, why are we always just a color and not associated with our rich history as others are with theirs, they'd say?
I don't know what you mean by "race" because to me we're all of the human race. That's just my pet peeve :) as people of color is with the OP.

Especially since, you know, there are black people in other countries. (Hardly an appropriate term for someone of Afro-Carribean origin, for instance.)

Because EVERYONE has a skin color, so the term make no logical sense.

African-Americans. I think the reason the phrase has come to us has something to do with politics, as opposed to semantics or racism: there's a very influential and highly respected group devoted to improving the lives of African-Americans called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. Since the NAACP has a good name (well-earned, too), they're disinclined to change it, and way back when the NAACP was created, "colored" was an accepted polite way to mean "African-American."

If the NAACP was the NAAAA (or, for African-Americans as opposed to colored people), then the phrase would probably have dropped away by now. But then they'd be N4A; doesn't have much ring to it.

And there's one more thing: African-Americans come in all shades. I know caucasians who are darker of skin than some African-Americans; I bet we all do. And if the phrase "black" was kept, it would have kind of suggested that the lighter one's skin happens to be, the less African-American, or the more "white." The NAACP wanted to advance the lives of all African-Americans, not just the ones whose skin happens to be dark. So the phrase "color;" when the operative phrases are "white" and "black" then the shades between get ignored. Not a good thing.

The above are my observations. I am white; I mean no offense and sincerely hope I have given none.

I really believe that will happen someday thousands of years in the future if we don't wipe yourselves out first with all the fighting.

People are people -- tall, short, old, young, male, female, etc.

I am sick and tired of forms that ask me to put myself into a category.

Honestly, that's the most condescending piece of nonsense I ever heard. Why that's supposedly preferably to the word "midget" or "dwarf" is beyond me.

But you know what? I'm not a little person, so I don't really get to have a say in what they prefer to be called.

For example, to say that I was glad to see a "person of color" in the WH means that I was glad the color barrier was broken. It wouldn't have mattered to me WHAT color.

Usually when you're talking about a single person it's better to use terms specific to them - black, Latin@, etc. - though occasionally someone will refer to themselves as "a woman of color" or what have you. But when talking about the racism faced by all people of color, it's better to phrase it that way than to either list a bunch of races and inevitably leave someone out, or than saying "non-white people", which sets "white" up as the default race and everyone else as "other".

It just sounds so forced, and I say that as someone who would fall into that category.

I don't get it, if your not a person of color then what are you? Clear? Everything has color! Who comes up with these labels?

That bugs the hell out of a lot of people.

:rofl: :D

;-)

;-)

I am a person of color(s). Oh, and the bruise on my leg is of many colors.

Compared to me you're all dark-skinned!

:shrug:

It sounds like one of those terms concocted at a Jane Elliott race workshop or something.

Sorry, just my experience.

If it isn't talking about you, it is not your battle to fight, is it?

I find that in general that the only people that get bugged about these terminologies are white people.

Black people, among themselves, will use all kinds of terms for each other.

Maybe the poster is sensitive to terminologies that might offend people, is that so hard to comprehend?

Specifically, pink!

my husband is the most beautiful shade of roan (Jamaican). we are a multicolored couple :)

I think that's why it has currency still.