People want to be named and recognized, not as part of an amalgam

July 1, 2020 10:16 AM

Constance Grady at Vox: This summer, a debate is looming over the words we use when we talk about the people who are disproportionately the victims of police brutality. When do we use the phrase “people of color”; when do we say “BIPOC,” which stands for Black and Indigenous people of color; and when do we just say “Black”?

On the drivers behind the use of terms like BIPOC:

This flattening does not necessarily stem from an active desire to do harm. Often, it’s rooted in a desire to be seen as “not racist” or, more broadly, as one of “the good guys.” Anxious and indiscriminate and mostly white liberal speakers vaguely grasp that old terms like “African American,” “minority,” and “diverse” are outdated, and that new terms like “people of color” and “BIPOC” are in. And so they begin to slot in the new terms for the old without thinking too much about how the new terms are different.

“There’s this anxiety over saying the wrong thing,” says deandre miles-hercules, a PhD linguistics student who focuses on sociocultural linguistic research on race, gender, and sexuality. “And so instead of maybe doing a little research, understanding the history and the different semantic valences of a particular term to decide for yourself, or to understand the appropriateness of a use in a particular context, people generally go, ‘Tell me the word, and I will use the word.’ They’re not interested in learning things about the history of the term, or the context in which it’s appropriate.”

On the limitations of BIPOC:

Rosa argues that when well-meaning white progressives adopt terms like “BIPOC” indiscriminately, they end up erasing such differences. They can also end up projecting US-centric ideas of race into racial conversations in other countries, where groups are constructed differently. “What I’m worried about with BIPOC is that US nationalist logics are informing some of the ways that a label like that gets taken up,” he says. “Which then amalgamates all the millions and millions of people who fit into that person of color category. And then we end up not being able to understand all the unique relationships among these populations.”

Sandra E. Garcia at The New York Times: Where Did BIPOC Come From?

“It is lazy to lump us all together as if we all face the same problems,” said Sylvia Obell, a host of the Netflix podcast “Okay, Now Listen.” “When you blend us all together like this, it’s erasure. It allows people to get away with not knowing people of color and our separate set of issues that we all face. It allows people to play it safe and not leave anyone out, and it also allows you to not have to do the work.”

In a moment when black Americans are asking that the names of those killed at the hands of the police be said aloud, and when black people are asking for equal treatment on a global scale, trying to fit all people of color and Native Americans in one term can seem tone deaf.

“The whole point is that we want to take up space,” Ms. Obell said. “Take the time to say black, Latinx and Asian. Say our names. Take the time to learn. Show me that you know the difference.”

posted by Ouverture (23 comments total)

A UK perspective:

• 'Don't call me BAME': Why some people are rejecting the term (BBC, 30 June)

  "I hate the term 'BAME', 'people of colour', all these labels," says comedian Eshaan Akbar, 35. "They don't define me. My experience as a British person who is half Bangladeshi and half Pakistani is very different to a British black male or any other Asian."

• Please, don't call me BAME or BME! (blog by Zamila Bunglawala of the Race Disparity Unit, Cabinet Office, UK Civil Service)

  "The terms are widely used by government departments, public bodies, the media and others when referring to ethnic minority groups. Yet during research we carried out with nearly 300 people across the UK, we found that only a couple recognised the acronyms and only one knew vaguely what they actually stood for!"

BAME stands for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic, or sometimes Black And Minority Ethnic although that term is more commonly abbreviated BME.
posted by Klipspringer at 10:48 AM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

Oh man that last link is interesting. It says that BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous AND People of Color. The first time I came across the term, I was told it stood for Black AND Indigenous People of Color. And the unstated meaning there was: not (east) Asians. Because (I think?) the idea was that east Asians in the US didn't face the same problems that Black and Latinx people did.

So this kind of changes my understanding of why the term exists.
posted by nushustu at 10:50 AM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

And now that I've read the FIRST article, I see that my former understanding of the definition is common....
posted by nushustu at 10:54 AM on July 1, 2020

Ask MetaFilter: How is the term BIPOC supposed to be used? Is it supposed to only refer to Black and Indigenous people of color, or is it supposed to include Black, Indigenous, and all other people of color?
posted by theodolite at 10:59 AM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

Oh man that last link is interesting. It says that BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous AND People of Color. The first time I came across the term, I was told it stood for Black AND Indigenous People of Color.

Yeah, this is one of the problems with BIPOC as a term. There seem to be two very different meanings for it, and it isn't immediately clear which one people mean in conversation.

For me, "people of color" is a very useful term in terms of broadly discussing all the different identities who struggle against white supremacy. But beyond that, I think it is far more useful to specify and name which groups people want to center in a conversation as opposed to flattening everything down to "BIPOC", which decenters over a billion people of color who face white supremacist oppression that already gets even less emphasis in American discourse.
posted by Ouverture at 10:59 AM on July 1, 2020 [16 favorites]

Came in here to post that AskMe, but on preview I see that theodolite beat me to it. My understanding of the term has been the same as nushutu's, except with "not South Asians either."

All those terms are flattening to some extent, and none of it is good, but the racism (in the US) against Black and Indigenous people is, to my South Asian/Virginian eyes, far more deeply rooted than the relatively more recent racism (in the US) against East and South Asians.

That's not even getting into things like colorism and the racism that affects, e.g. a hundred million Indigenous people in India.
posted by basalganglia at 11:08 AM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

I think various efforts over the past few decades to introduce new terminology to the popular consciousness that's more -- for lack of a less loaded phrase -- politically correct, though perhaps well-intended, has mostly served to push anti-racism and anti-oppression from the realm of movement building to the realm of etiquette and manners, and now activists who speak that language but see the potential for a real, sustained mass movement are finding that it's not suited for that purpose. Jonathan Rosa's point at the very end of that Vox article is spot on.
posted by jy4m at 11:37 AM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

A bit on the derivation and history of the term "BIPoC".
posted by drivingmenuts at 11:38 AM on July 1, 2020

It's a good discussion. I think the push to just be specific is helpful.

As an example, here in California it's important to me that Latinx/Hispanic voices and issues aren't lost -- when we're talking about police violence, Black Lives Matter (and they do), but we shouldn't forget that Hispanic people are also disproportionately killed by police. Probably better to say that, though, than to use a broader term.
posted by feckless at 11:58 AM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]

non WASPs
posted by Mrs Potato at 12:19 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

In my admittedly limited experience with BIPOC thus far, it has mostly appeared to be a term that woke white people use... and often with no explanation whatsoever of what it means for the uninitiated. I had to look it up a few times before I remembered it.

It seems like a term that not only has been concocted without real buy-in from the people it refers to, but that is an example of insider jargon used by well-educated activists to show their sophistication, i.e., for lack of a better word, a form of virtue signaling.

See also: Latinx.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:31 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]

Mod note: Couple of comments deleted. Gently, I want to suggest that people who aren't in one of the groups this covers should probably just listen here and specifically avoid indulging abstract word-nerd impulses on this topic if it's not about your own identity. (Take a look at the Mefi Community Guidelines for a bit more)
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:32 PM on July 1, 2020 [12 favorites]

Joylessly anticpates the future discussion about 'brown' identity and labeling.

Also remembering the fastest I've ever seen anyone in a necktie go from zero to about to throttle someone, when a South African first encountered the HR neologism 'person of color'. "Did you just refer to me as Colored? How DARE you!"
posted by bartleby at 1:58 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

There was a some anger in the UK's Jewish community over recent studies into coronavirus infections among "BAME" communities that excluded Jews.

Although Jews in the UK are reportedly included in the BAME classification (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) this is often ignored. I suspect most UK Jews are happy to be omitted from a marked category, but on this occasion it had real consequences: it turns out that UK Jews die from coronavirus at a vastly higher rate than average, even adjusting for risk factors; and it seems to me that this was only recognised because the Jewish community themselves started asking questions. The reasons for the excess mortality are still not understood.

I think there are important lessons here about how we group people and the internal and external forces that drive this, but all I can think of saying is that it isn't about semantics: this has real-world consequences.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:12 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

"What I’m worried about with BIPOC is that US nationalist logics are informing some of the ways that a label like that gets taken up..."

Flashbacking to the Tale of Genji fic on AO3 that was tagged "chromatic"
posted by airmail at 4:15 PM on July 1, 2020

I use not-white or racialized, but they both suck in their own ways. (Not White because it centre’s the conversation on White people, again. Racialized sounds too academic or like a condition.) I just think if we are treating such a disparate group of people as a big collective, what is the thing that unifies them? Certainly not skin colour.
posted by chunking express at 5:43 PM on July 1, 2020

That s what the term " people of color" was supposed to do, unify.

I think the key is to avoid acronym for most contexts, and use full phrases. Yeah, longer, but still shorter than many options. Context is always key.
posted by eustatic at 5:52 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

People of Colour is such an awkward phrase, and honestly just reminds me of “coloured”.
posted by chunking express at 6:06 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

People of Colour is such an awkward phrase, and honestly just reminds me of “coloured”.

I think it's a beautiful one. The critical difference between "people of color" and "colored people" is that the latter is something that is done to us, implicitly by whiteness. The former centers us as people who also happen to be united in solidarity against white supremacy.

I don't see it as awkward at all. I am proud as hell to be a person of color and to connect to centuries of struggles across the world against white supremacy.
posted by Ouverture at 7:57 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]

I feel like "people of color" kind of falls into the trap of only non-white people having a color (and in many people's minds, having a race) while white people can continue to not think of themselves in racialized terms. I do appreciate the history from the article about how it's originally a solidarity- and movement-building term but I wonder whether we can have a better alternative for today.
posted by coolname at 10:59 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

The problem with using colour as a synecdoche for being racially marked is that racists, even in the USA, also use other physical signifiers to mark racial categories. E.g., look at the jokes and slurs about Jewish hair, and noses. I've seen people claim that consequently, to be Jewish is by definition to be a Person of Colour, but that hasn't been received well.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:38 PM on July 1, 2020

The constant shift in terminology seems like it comes from a (failed, and doomed to fail, IMO) attempt to come up with a simple, universal term for marginalized ethnic groups. I think the problem is disproportionately approached in a Eurocentric white-vs.-otherwise mold which misses out on a lot of subtleties both within and among those groups collectively lumped into that "otherwise". So a universal term tends to miss out on, say, the fact that the societal perception in America of Black people and East Asians reflects an entirely different raft of prejudices against each. Or that there are societies (particularly outside of Europe and America, although those same issues can be recapitulated in immigrant communities, so they can't be dismissed as just somewhere else's problem) where there's ethnic prejudice and subjugation which is entirely among people of color. It seems like every time people try to come up with a blanket term for "victims of ethnic marginalization" the term fails to capture these subtleties and either ends up being confusing (like BIPOC: is it all of those groups, the overlap of those groups, or a description of people of color but especially of Black and Indigenous ones, and if the last, how do you belong "especially" to a group?), or capriciously binary (blind to the notion that a group can be both persecuted and persecuting, or that oppression can be of different forms).
posted by jackbishop at 7:45 AM on July 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm partial to "marked and marginalized". It works pretty well in global contexts and is future-proofed against situations we haven't yet recognized, but of course it lacks the punch of an acronym.
posted by tangerine at 9:43 AM on July 2, 2020