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 don’t have anything to offer other than just wishing racism wasn’t a fucking thing. In the USA it feels like everyone is OBSESSED with it, and the PoC and all those labels and etc. just make my head hurt. I don’t even think the Nazis had such a weirdly codified system of “race” as does the average US citizens. It fucking bothers me when people say I’m “Mexican” even though I was born in the USA. I’m not ashamed to have Mexican heritage, I am quite proud of it, however, THERE IS NOTHING INTRINSIC TO ME THAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER PERSON BORN IN THIS SHITTY COUNTRY REEEE
I honestly feel even PoC is dehumanizing sometimes. If I were more ethnically ambigous I would just say I’m mixed, but I just tell people I’m Mexican despite never having fucking been there because the moment they see that caramel skin the calipers come out FUCK
I don’t even think the Nazis had such a weirdly codified system of “race” as does the average US citizens.
Hitler be like yikes that’s mask off to your average boater kulak american.
The Nazis actually explicitly toned down the American codified definitions of race because they were too stringent. The “one drop rule” meant that anyone in America with any provable black ancestry, literally a single black ancestor, was legally black and therefore subject to Jim Crow laws. The Nazis realized that if they applied the same standards to Germany there wouldn’t be much of anyone left, including a good portion of the leadership.
I am not american, but it’s pretty insabe looking from the outside in. Like just think about the word “Caucasian” and how it exists in the US
If anything, Americans are probably some of the more tolerant people in the world when it comes to race.
This is not an opinion based in reality.
yeah, maybe your reality. Are you black or dark skinned? If not shut the fuck up.
The public harassment is much worse in other countries. Being “honest” about racism is much better than whatever the fuck kind of gaslighting delusional bullshit Europeans like to push.
Not sure you’re interpreting race in the same way as it exists generally in “the West”. Ethnic supremacy and colorism exist basically everywhere, but the notion of race that originates from Euro-settler colonialism is a specific form of discrimination that goes beyond ethnicity and color.
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
joking here but its a bit ridiculous to call me white. i can be described as translucent with a bluish hue, or an eye hazard when in direct sunlight
and yeah i have a hispanic friend that is a bit like this. pretty pale but with a slight orangish hue, most people can tell hes hispanic but his hue gives him a lot of favors other hispanic people dont get
“Hispanic” is a US centered addition to the concept of race. Many people with lighter skin tone that are considered Hispanic in the US would be considered white anywhere else in the Americas. It was conceived of as a way to separate people that speak Spanish from the Anglo-whites in the US.
Sure, that doesn’t change the reality that Latinx people are still disproportionately discriminated against in ways that white people are not in the US. In many states, they were (and still are) subjected to racial segregation.
Concepts of race and ethnicity change across countries.
Just me spitballing here…
One of those terms is a positive affirmation and the other is a negative one.
“Person of Color” is the positive, in that it tries to communicate something that “is.” While “non-white” is the negative, trying to communicate what isn’t. Both can do the job of telling people around you what they may need to know, but there might be subtle cognitive cues that potentially give extra context.
There shouldn’t be anything wrong with using the term, but I can imagine that at some point, you’re going to have somebody (or have already) had somebody try to explain that one is better than the other. As a weird example, I’ve read comments going off on a person because they used the term “junk” to refer to a their own genitals.
