Talk:Person of color

Racism

The term "People of Colour" denotes "NON-WHITE" people. Some people though, prefer the complete wiki definition below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.73.38.57 (talk) 16:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The term "People of Color" has it's roots in white supremacy, by way of the groups and individuals who supported a notion of racial "superiority". This was evidenced in religion, science and the governments (not just the U.S.) who sanctioned these ideas. While the U.S. has long since abandoned such notions, the term is now used as a means of coalition building among non-white peoples. It's employed politically in places where there is a majority of Caucasian peoples, usually when opposing that majority. It is a social construct that perpetuates a political separation between "whites" and everybody else. In reality there is no such scientific distinction - all peoples, from dark to light have varying degrees of melanin, and can be considered "colored". And whatever the terminology used, no "race" can actually be excluded or separated from the rest of the Human spectrum. However popular the term in news media and journalism, it is a fundamentally racist construct, as is any attempt to isolate or separate one racial group from others. My hope is that editors explore this idea in more detail. This meaning is not referenced in the article. EyePhoenix (talk) 07:06, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Offensive term?

"Person of color" can be viewed by some people as offensive, because it defines people by their color, instead of just as people. It's also anti-white, as it sets everyone who is nonwhite against those that are white. This is still racism.

What's better is to dispense with reference to color. "African-American" refers to a geographic location; the color of the person does not matter.Ryoung122 03:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I reverted your changes as they are unsourced and appear to be WP:OR. The article is about the use of the term. All occasions of offense at the term can only be included from reliable sources.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

A talk page isn't a forum for discussing the topic generally. Please see WP:Talk page guidelines:

The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views.

-- Irn (talk) 01:31, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Where else to discuss it? Citing rules to undermine discussions is no way of handling sensible aspects of general debates. The term "colored" and "colored people" has already been outlawed in several European countries, because of similar aspects as provieded above by Ryoung. Perhaps the positive tone of this article of this term should be somewhat relative to these facts and -- 92.231.36.6 (talk) 08:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that it's very much an American PC term, which serves a very real socio-political function in the US, for obvious historic racial reasons, but is considered ludicrous or offensive in the rest of the world. There should be a section carefully describing criticism of the term, or opposition to it, along with international perspectives, with reliable sources, of course. Gymnophoria (talk) 03:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that of NPOV. Usually, major alternative interpretations of a socio-political term are acceptable and even encouraged. To NOT have that here is not only POV, but ironically, also "PC".Ryoung122 20:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see something about attitudes towards the term outside of the USA. I think in the UK it's considered at best trite and overly PC and at worst a racial slur similar to simply saying 'coloured' (although I don't have a source, only personal experience). Which can lead to some interesting (but time wasting) debates with Americans during any cross-cultural discussion of race issues. Especially when they have a similar reaction to UK PC terms like Black British. It would be nice to have an established authority to turn to when this comes up and since (for me at least) it mainly happens online Wikipedia would be the perfect place.

Aside from all that theres also the fact that if it was/is used anywhere outside the USA it'd be good to cover it. Especially if it was brought in a potential PC term and then rejected like 'Differently abled'. Danikat (talk) 10:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

It is a racist term, because the Ku Klux Klan originally used this term back in the day. So yes, it is racist and a white supremacist term, "reclaimed" or not. Grand Armor (talk) 04:08, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

This is an English language term, and the majority of the world's native English speakers are American. So, by definition, how the word is viewed elsewhere will be (oh, rich irony!) a minority view.

Furthermore, the total population of black Americans is vastly higher than in other major English-speaking countries. There were 47,841,851 black Americans in 2018 according to the Census Bureau, whereas only 3% of Britain's 67 million people -- about 2 million in total -- are classified as Black British. The numbers in Canada and Australia are even lower than in Britain, and that's with aborigines included in the black figure for Australia. So, in point of fact, what black Americans choose to call themselves represents, by far, the terminology preferred by the vast majority of the world's black people living in the "inner circle" of English-speaking countries, simply because most of the world's English-speaking countries simply have very few black people present within them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhilHudson82 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

This article is problematic for readers in the UK as many black and minority communities find being described as 'people of colour' offensive. The article can maintain an NPOV whilst still explaining this. Stub Mandrel (talk) 22:11, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Person of Color Can Be A Racist Term

As a Hispanic, whose ancestors came from Spain and Ireland hundreds of years ago, I find the term 'Person of Color' to be racist because it negates my race and my DNA. Regardless of whether my skin is lighter or darker, I am still caucasian. Skin pigmentation is meaningless in determining if your race is white or not. The article on 'Person of Color' has many offensive and erroneous conclusions. That term is not preferred by anyone I know, including Asians, in spite of what the author says. The few people I have heard use the term to describe themselves have all been African-Americans. Such an offensive article has no place in Wikipedia, especially when edits are removed. The fact that articles are quoted to justify such nonsense doesn't make it right. I can assure anyone that thinks it's ok to call me a 'person of color' that I will tell them exactly what I believe, and that is that the term is racist and offensive because except for true albinos every human being is a person of color. Of course, we all know that the author is not referring to every human being, just to the ones who don't fit his criteria of white. That in my opinion is the true mark of a racist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carmeniris1 (talk • contribs) 01:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to add references to the article in which reliable sources say that some people find "person of color" to be offensive. --Alynna (talk) 13:18, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

This seems a very US-centric article. Calling someone "colored", or a "person of color" is considered racist in the UK, much of Europe and Austrlia. US Asians tend to find it offensive being thrown into a racial coalition with everyone else who's not white. As a white European myself I find it personally offensive - are white people therefore colourless? Colourless has a lot of negative connotations. This article needs bulking out with some international perspective and criticism. Gymnophoria (talk) 10:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I found this in the first sentence: is a term used, primarily in the United States,. Seems clear on the scope. Again, feel free to add reliable sources on its offensiveness to some.--Carwil (talk) 11:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is a reliable source - I find the term offensive. -- 92.231.36.6 (talk) 08:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The definition of reliable source used on Wikipedia does not include personal testimony.

The purpose of the term "people of colour" is to refer to people who experience prejudice, discrimination and oppression on the basis of systemic racism, at least in Europe and North America; the term is thus somewhat Eurocentric, but still relevant on a global scale, as people of colour are disadvantaged on a global scale, even if the institutions in their respective countries of residence may happen not to systemically discriminate against all people of colour, and possibly even happen to discriminate against white people. (I am speaking in the context of the sociological theory on which this term is based.) The term is not itself racist, in the sense that using it is or makes you racist, it merely reflects a pre-existing racist construct. It is not a scientific, biological concept, but a sociological category! It does not endorse any particular racial classification. In fact, people who use the term are typically opposed to racial classifications and consider them pseudoscientific. If Pakistanis, Afghans, Iranians, West Asians and North Africans (i. e., non-Europeans), unless they happen to "pass" as white, are factually treated as non-white and experience racist prejudice, discrimination and oppression (and there is plenty of evidence that they do), at least in countries where the ruling class is (or identifies as) mostly or entirely white, or the institutions are dominated by whites, Pakistanis, Afghans etc. count as people of colour, even if in racial classifications they are usually considered white/Caucasian – theoretically, that is. (The same is true for Hispanics/Latins – some can "pass" as white, but most, especially those with dark skin or hair, are not factually treated as white, and in effect treated as people of colour, regardless of how they might be classified racially in theory. Even some Sami may not "pass" as white, despite technically being European.) This is because they are in practice denied "white privilege", i. e., the advantages and rights accorded to white people virtually as a matter of course but denied all others. (The subjectivity and arbitrary nature of the term "white" is best exemplified by the observation that in the US, in the early 20th century even Sicilians or Irish seem not always to have been treated as fully white, and not least by the fate of the Jews. Personally, I like the term "visible minority", despite the problematic implications of the term "minority", as people are treated as white or people of colour – "foreigners" – basically on their appearance – not allegedly objective racial classifications! –, which can also include clothing choice, behaviour or even audible characteristics such as a foreign or stigmatised accent, so much that even a typically Caucasian-looking person can "pass" as a person of colour – also thanks to the legacy of the "one-drop rule" –, purely and simply by dressing up, see Rachel Dolezal. Clothes make people, and appearances are deceiving.) Social-justice jargon is based on sociological lingo, so if you object to the notions expounded here, you have to take the issue up with sociologists, not random activists on the Internet. Most criticisms here are concerned with subjectively defined categories or get bogged down into pedantic sophistry, word-games and "maybe you are the real racist here!"-style table-turning tactics and thus miss the entire point. In more popular language: You can be "technically" 100% white/Caucasian – if society treats you as "brown" and self-identified white people shun you and confront you all sorts of insulting labels and stereotypes, you can't buy anything for your "technical whiteness". And finally, Wikipedia describes how terms are used in the real world, not what random, pseudonymous Internet surfers think about these terms. Nobody cares. Also, the article is necessarily US-centric because the term was invented in North America, is used only in English, and the USA are an extremely racist society. Exhibit A: Donald Trump and the appallingly numerous positive reactions he gets. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Correction: The term is inherently a US-centric term because it is pretty much only used in the USA. It can only applied to Western countries in the first place, where "white" is the default. As explained here, a person of colour is a person of partly or fully non-European ancestry in a white-majority country (and who is therefore subject to racism, the experience of racism being the bond that unites all people of colour and thus makes the term relevant and useful), as opposed to a white person, who is exclusively or almost exclusively of European descent; a Chinese person in China (or Singapore, presumably) is not a person of colour, not being subject to racist discrimination, while a Chinese person in the US, Germany or Australia is. And while a white person can definitely not be a person of colour, a white-passing person of not exclusively (or almost exclusively) European ancestry can choose to identify as a person of colour. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

There is a problem with this discussion page as many North American editors seem unwilling to accept or validate that people from the UK and other countries often find the term 'people of colour' offensive or at least insensitive regardless of their own racial background. The following link can help illustrate the complexity of feeling in the UK if nothing else [[1]]. Stub Mandrel (talk) 22:19, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Is a mixed-race person who is both white and something other than white a "person of color?"

The article defines a person of color as a person who is non-white. Does that mean that if a person has a white parent, that person is not "of color?" Redeye000 (talk) 00:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

No, mixed people are POC too, although they may be able to pass as white. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:21, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

For example, Obama is definitely a POC. Due to the heritage of the one-drop rule, POC in the US are theoretically a very large group that includes many people who nobody thinks of as POC, and who may not self-identify as POC, either. Some people of (wholly or partially) non-European heritage may pass and self-identify as white because they still have a "Caucasian" appearance, for example, Steve Jobs or Kim Kardashian. There are white Latinxs, too, for example Sofía Vergara. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:54, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I was also wondering about this. I'm half Japanese, quarter French, and quarter German. I've lived all my life in the US and speak only english, if that counts for anything. I've gotten conflicting answers from people, so I never know how to answer survey questions. I think it would be good if this article could clarify this. Benjamin (talk) 23:23, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta: I haven't found anything that answers this specifically so far but I thought I'd mention a few things I have found: first, a 2009 article by a British anthropologist surveying and discussing various terms that might be used for people of mixed heritage, “person of color” unfortunately not among them.

Then there are a couple of open-access resources on the general topic I came across which I thought I'd leave links to in case they're of interest to you or someone else reading this talk page in the future:

• a 2012 academic paper “Rethinking Research on Multiracial College Students: Toward an Integrative Model of Multiraciality for Campus Climate”
• a 2017 book Identity Politics of Difference: The Mixed-Race American Indian Experience by Michelle R. Montgomery, doi:10.2307/j.ctt1vgwb85

--‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 03:38, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

And actually, I just realized I've been overlooking some extremely recent anecdata: with the recent election of Kamala Harris as VPOTUS, there have been a spate of articles declaring that she isn't the first Vice President of color, but that Herbert Hoover's VP Charles Curtis, who had a white father and a Kaw Nation mother, was—see the Washington Post here frex:

But, as some have mistakenly claimed, she is not the first multiracial vice president or the first one of color. That distinction belongs to Charles Curtis, who served as vice president to Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933. Curtis's mother was a Native American who belonged to the Kaw Nation, and he was raised on a reservation by his maternal grandparents, where he spoke the Indigenous language and lived in a tepee.

or the NYT:

But historians and Native Americans are also revisiting the legacy of Charles Curtis, whose Kaw Nation ancestry gives him a claim as the first “person of color” to serve as vice president, though the term's current usage emerged decades later.

So that's at least enough to put in the Wiktionary entry, I think, and hence I'm at least adding it to The dictionary definition of of color at Wiktionary. Hopefully I'll come across a suitable Wikipedia-type source for here. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 04:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

perhaps this topic (terminology) is mainly a US-related subject matter?

looking at that worldwide tag. perhaps this terminology or the theory behind it takes place primarily in the US. if so, is that measurable? skakEL 19:54, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

In the Netherlands the phrase "personen van kleur" is used in academia and leftist activism. Literally meaning "people of color". Those groups have a tendency to import almost all social ideas and phrases from US universities and voice them in certain media, but they are not representative of society as a whole. Someone Not Awful (talk) 17:34, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@Someone Not Awful: The exact same is the case in the UK. Where "ethnic minority" was once the preferred term, branching out BAME/BAEM/BME (Black, Asian, Minor, Ethnic), the Usonified term "Person of colour" has now taken root. This is especially a problem when PoC is used as a synonym, yet excluding all white people, despite white minorities making up a large part of the population. PoC has allusions towards "coloured" and highlights antiquated scientific racist differences which society has been trying to be rid of for decades. As you say, these are not representative of society as whole, and therefore do not represent a worldwide view! UaMaol (talk) 07:39, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

"Person of color" definitely has nothing to do with people being dolichocephalic or hereditary criminality, much less modern proponents of scientific racism who to my knowledge are all political conservatives rather than the sort who would say "person of color" (attempts to use Wikipedia to promote that stuff has actually been quite a problem during the past decade, see WP:ARBR&I and WP:AE), and to imply otherwise is absurd. Discrimination against people based on their appearance is a very real thing, and the intention is very much to not include minorities like left-handed people: the point of this term is to highlight disparities in the way societies (the multiple Anglophone societies cited in the article) treat people on a particular axis.

Quite possibly people discuss this less in public outside of the U.S.; if there are reliable, verifiable, etc. sources saying so it may be appropriate to add them to the article. There is great political pressure to not talk about it here at the moment, too. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 08:44, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I added Asian Americans

I removed it cuz there was never a good source. skakEL 14:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

here is the diff where I removed it

Nov 2020 edits need review

An anonymous IP added several edits about problems with the term, with sources, but those got reverted. Why were the sourced claims reverted? Were the URLs not legit? The IP editor has since restored some of their content, but without sources. Should this information be tagged CN, or removed from the article? Aristophanes68 (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

The person doing the reverting has also been warned about vandalism for reverting other edits. In fact the vast majority of their edits are manual reverts of good edits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/BlaineStu2025 194.207.86.26 (talk) 10:42, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Someone else reverted that IP's contributions again. I restored the references, since they seem legit. Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:57, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Coloured People in South Africa

The wording in the introduction of this article seems to imply that the term coloured is a recent development in South Africa, when it really isn't. It also has developed a different meaning to the one used in the USA, which should be noted in the article. Drakenwolf (talk) 08:20, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much for pointing this out, Drakenwolf; I was entirely aware of this fact but failed to take note of the omission while I've looked at this article during the last few weeks. I've changed the last paragraph in the lede to read

The term "colored" was originally equivalent in use to the term "person of color" in American English, but usage of the appellation "colored" in the Southern United States gradually came to be restricted to "negroes", and is now considered a racial pejorative. Elsewhere in the world and in other dialects of English the term may have entirely different connotations however; for example in South Africa, "Coloureds" refers to multiple multiracial ethnic groups and is sometimes applied to other groups in Southern Africa, such as the Basters of Namibia.

But feel free to make any improvements you see fit. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 10:15, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Why the term is irrelevant

Non-whites are no more colored than whites — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:9001:5005:ED00:10B0:9B69:D552:83ED (talk) 15:54, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 April 2021

The White Hispanic and Latino Americans section includes the following sentence:

"Latinos can be white, black, Native American, Asian, or any mixture of these, just as North Americans can be."

Recommend removing "just as North Americans can be" since it implies that North America and Latin America are distinct and separate places when much of Latin America is in North America (consistent with the list of countries included in the Wikipedia entry on North America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America#Countries,_territories,_and_dependencies. Melsh87 (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

 Done EvergreenFir (talk) 18:31, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:OR/WP:SYNTH

I have removed certain WP:OR/WP:SYN content here. The article already mentions that "The use of the phrase person of color to describe white Hispanic and Latino Americans and Spaniards has been criticized as inaccurate" and includes some related criticism from others (Falcón et al.).

The remaining content is either duplicative (in some cases) or WP:SYN/WP:OR (in other cases). Some of these sources don't mention the phrase "person of color" or similar at all, and appear to be cobbled together to make some additional point in essay-style. That's not good for an encyclopedia.

Some of this content may be OK at a different article, such as Definitions of whiteness in the United States, white Hispanic and Latino Americans, etc. Neutrality^talk 23:14, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• And, to break this down this morass of OR, even further, just to take a few of the citations in the morass:

• White House "1997 document" - deadlink, no mention of "persons of color"
• Census publication from May 2011 on Cubans who identify as white - deadlink, no mention of "persons of color," not relevant to this page, already covered by the statement already in the article
• Fowler 2020 (blog post): does not support the text (e.g., "indiscriminate labeling")
• Kirkus Review of Roediger book: no mention of "persons of color" at all. Again, maybe useful at Definitions of whiteness in the United States.
• Yglesias piece: Blog post, does not support the text, already covered by material earlier in the article.

--Neutrality^talk 14:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the exclusion of Slavic People

I have a reliable source. What do you mean by "generally"? It seems arbitrary to trump the objective with whims. BasedMises_{Mont Pelerin} 00:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Both are primary sources. Please find reliable secondary sources that say people of Slavic descent are people of color. Some1 (talk) 00:21, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I have a source. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2010/05/communities_of_color_coalition.html BasedMises_{Mont Pelerin} 00:27, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Do you have any sources not from the Communities of Color Coalition (which your three sources are all based on)? Preferably scholarly and academic sources. Some1 (talk) 00:31, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Although it most certainly is enough, here is another one: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED445991.pdf EDIT: also this: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/covid19/EquityPlan/Clackamas.pdf BasedMises_{Mont Pelerin} 00:33, 30 June 2021 (UTC)