I am not white in the sense that “whiteness” is a socially constructed racial classification, but I am “white” in the sense that the color of my skin is white. I’m still not really “white-passing”; you wouldn’t look at me and think I’m a white American or a westerner in general.
People will sometimes call me a “person of color”. This tends to make me feel uncomfortable because I’m not really marginalized by society in the same way black or brown people are, and to me PoC is a term used mainly to draw attention to that form of marginalization.
It’s not that I’m not marginalized at all because of the way I look. When I was younger, I was told to shave my beard any time I flew so I wasn’t harassed in the airport for looking too terrorist-y.
Maybe my discomfort with the term PoC being used for me is that it specifically calls out the color aspect, and the color of my skin is white.
So I usually tell people I call myself “non-white” instead. What do you think? Maybe I’m overthinking this. I’d especially like to hear thoughts from black and brown comrades about this: would you call me a person of color? Thanks.
Edit: I’ll probably stick to calling myself non-white, but I won’t correct anybody if they call me a PoC. Thanks for the thoughts everyone, I appreciate it.
I wouldn’t worry to much about finding a consistent idea of what race people are as racists don’t bother and they’re the ones who get to decide who and how they’re racist against.
For reference for a while the English claimed the Irish were secretly black people and in South Africa the Japanese were considered white and the Chinese weren’t. Of course the Chinese used to be considered white in the 1700’s but stopped once the British started selling them opium. The Spanish are white in Europe and PoC in America it’s always been stupid and inconsistent. This isn’t even considering the Catholic/Protestant religious and cultural differences and how they’ve played into it let alone non-Christian religions especially Abrahamic ones.
Trying to make sense of race and racism as an actual consistent belief will drive you mad and racists don’t bother
