The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #155337 Message #3654262
Posted By: Mrrzy
26-Aug-14 - 11:01 AM
Thread Name: BS: The term People of Color - Let's Nix
Subject: RE: BS: The term People of Color - Let's Nix
Azizi, people of color as a phrase does define people by what they are not - white - by calling everybody who isn't white colored as if white weren't a color but all other people have one. That is exactly why I am against it. If we are going to divide people by skin color and put one color in category 1, people (nothing specified about color so assumed to be white), and everybody else in another, people of some kind of color, then I really really think we should call African blacks people, and everybody else should be lumped under People of Paleness. They were first, everybody else has lost melanin somewhere.
I really think that it is a very bad idea to perpetuate the fallacy that white is default and everybody else is marked. I use those terms linguistically, like "horse" has default gender, assumed to be male, "stallion" is marked for maleness, and "mare" is marked for femaleness. "Horse" should not be the equivalent for "white" but for "human" or "person" is my argument.
I *do* understand that white is (becoming?) the default in the US and that makes no sense at all, white should only be the default in Europe, where it actually IS the default. There should be no stereotypical color for Americans, we're all mongrels and should embrace that. And I find it horribly racist, and think that the use of terms like people of color makes it more true. Sapir Whorf and all.
It's time for white people like me to realize that they are NOT the default value for humanity, and have no right to lump all others into a category by skin color that excludes them. Only African blacks have an actual, rational, biological reason to do that.
And I am so very glad that rumors of your departure were premature!