Maybe it's just in the US where there is a different kind of racism than anywhere else I've lived, including (barely) post-Colonial West Africa, but the term "People of Color" is beginning to really, really bother me... The calm assumption that white = normal and anything else = something different bugs me. Can we start using People of Paleness to mean anybody who isn't completely sub-Saharan, black African? After all, that's what all the races are, is various degrees of not-as-black-as-original.

This is partly in response to being accused of Not Supporting The Cause at an anti-racist-cops rally for being unwilling to assume all cops are racist, and saying that any assumption that all individual cops in my city are as racist as some cops in Ferguson, is as bigoted as the assumption by some cops in Ferguson that all "people of color" are criminals.

Apparently it's OK for PoC to tar all people who choose to wear blue with the racist brush, but not OK for the cops to tar all PoC with the criminal brush... if you're a PoC and don't wear blue.

I dislike bigotry. I prefer assuming that you don't know what an individual will be like, rather than assuming that they will be like *your* stereotype of what you think *their* group is, when you feel they have a group to which you feel you don't belong.

I am accused of desiring reason in an unreasonable world, but I really only would prefer it from those capable of reason. *Sigh*. I don't try to pray away a hurricane but I will argue with people who say I am "against them" because I don't support *everything* they say.