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Doesn't the "POC" term promote the idea that "people of color" have some sort of shared interests? Yet, is that always true? Person A is an upper-middle class

Doesn't the "POC" term promote the idea that "people of color" have some sort of shared interests? Yet, is that always true? Person A is an upper-middle class Indian. They study software engineering at university in India. They immigrate to the United States and get a job working as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. Person B is a working class African-American. Nobody in their family has ever been to university. They work in a service job and live in the suburbs of Atlanta. What do A and B actually have in common? It seems to me, probably not very much. Their life experiences are very different. A lives a much more privileged life than B. Probably, A actually has more in common with, and more commonality of interests, with their Caucasian American colleagues than with B. Given that, doesn't labelling them both as "POC" obscure more than it reveals? It also completely ignores the problem that India has with anti-African racism and violence, see e.g – https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/24/the-harsh-reality-of-being-african-in-india-race-violence-college-students/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/24/the-harsh-reality-of-be... – something of which person A may of course be personally entirely innocent, but then again maybe not. If anything, I think the term "POC" is deeply Western-centric (and even US-centric), and presumes that racism and racial conflict is always whites-against-everyone else, when in the wider world it often isn't. (Africans in India, Uighurs and Tibetans in China–and, I think the case of China shows, trying to blame European colonialism for non-Western racism doesn't always work. Or, again, consider how Japan treated Koreans.) I think the term BIPOC is potentially problematic in that it presents African-American and Native American interests as being more aligned than maybe they actually are. What is the foundational story of US history? The New York Times' 1619 Project presents it as being the Atlantic slave trade. Why that, and not the dispossession of Native Americans? Many African-Americans (and even many Caucasian Americans) seem to want to privilege the African-American narrative over the Native American narrative. Are Native Americans okay with that? I'm sure at least some are not. But lumping them together as "BIPOC" serves to obscure, even erase, these tensions. (Throwaway because, I hope people can appreciate my comments are an attempt to approach these issues thoughtfully, but in today's climate one has to be very careful what one says.)

thex10 6y ago
> Doesn't the "POC" term promote the idea that "people of color" have some sort of shared interests? Think highlight rather than promote. Think shared experience rather than shared interest. No, not identical experience, but think overlapping parts of a venn diagram. A relevant example in that overlap, assumed criminality, is mentioned in the very comment you are replying to. And sure, it's probably very Western-centric and doesn't encapsulate the complicated relations amongst many different races, nationalities, and ethnicities. Not sure why one would expect a single phrase to accomplish such. > I think the term BIPOC is potentially problematic in that it presents African-American and Native American interests as being more aligned than maybe they actually are. Do you have a similar issue with the LGBT framing?
- throwaway711477 6y ago
  > Think highlight rather than promote. Think shared experience rather than shared interest. No, not identical experience, but think overlapping parts of a venn diagram. A relevant example in that overlap, assumed criminality, is mentioned in the very comment you are replying to. How much shared experience does a professional class recent immigrant from Asia actually have with a working class African-American? For very many of the former, the "assumed criminality" is largely a non-issue. (Even the example mentioned in quadrifoliate's comment was presented as an exception rather than the norm.) And, might not recent immigrants from Asian countries have shared experiences in common with immigrants from Europe? quadrifoliate mentioned experiencing stupid jokes about his perceived culture, but dumb ethnic jokes and stereotypes are something that European-descended ethnic minorities have to put up with too. At school, my half-Italian friend had to put up with jokes about his dad being in the mafia; there is a long tradition of jokes presenting Irish people as stupid; etc. Yet the Italians/Irish/Greeks/etc who have to put up with these dumb jokes and stereotypes are not classified as "people of color", while the same experience had by an Asian person is put forward as justification for classifying them as such. > Do you have a similar issue with the LGBT framing? Yes. To give just one example, a number of lesbian feminists have criticised that framing as over-emphasising the commonality of interests between gay men and lesbian women and under-emphasising the extent to which their interests conflict with each other. see e.g. https://we.riseup.net/assets/168538/Sheila%20Jeffreys%20The%20Queer%20Disappearance%20of%20lesbians.pdf https://we.riseup.net/assets/168538/Sheila%20Jeffreys%20The%...
olivermarks 6y ago
>(Throwaway because, I hope people can appreciate my comments are an attempt to approach these issues thoughtfully, but in today's climate one has to be very careful what one says.) This is a very state of affairs

thex10 6y ago

> Doesn't the "POC" term promote the idea that "people of color" have some sort of shared interests? Think highlight rather than promote. Think shared experience rather than shared interest. No, not identical experience, but think overlapping parts of a venn diagram. A relevant example in that overlap, assumed criminality, is mentioned in the very comment you are replying to. And sure, it's probably very Western-centric and doesn't encapsulate the complicated relations amongst many different races, nationalities, and ethnicities. Not sure why one would expect a single phrase to accomplish such. > I think the term BIPOC is potentially problematic in that it presents African-American and Native American interests as being more aligned than maybe they actually are. Do you have a similar issue with the LGBT framing?

throwaway711477 6y ago
> Think highlight rather than promote. Think shared experience rather than shared interest. No, not identical experience, but think overlapping parts of a venn diagram. A relevant example in that overlap, assumed criminality, is mentioned in the very comment you are replying to. How much shared experience does a professional class recent immigrant from Asia actually have with a working class African-American? For very many of the former, the "assumed criminality" is largely a non-issue. (Even the example mentioned in quadrifoliate's comment was presented as an exception rather than the norm.) And, might not recent immigrants from Asian countries have shared experiences in common with immigrants from Europe? quadrifoliate mentioned experiencing stupid jokes about his perceived culture, but dumb ethnic jokes and stereotypes are something that European-descended ethnic minorities have to put up with too. At school, my half-Italian friend had to put up with jokes about his dad being in the mafia; there is a long tradition of jokes presenting Irish people as stupid; etc. Yet the Italians/Irish/Greeks/etc who have to put up with these dumb jokes and stereotypes are not classified as "people of color", while the same experience had by an Asian person is put forward as justification for classifying them as such. > Do you have a similar issue with the LGBT framing? Yes. To give just one example, a number of lesbian feminists have criticised that framing as over-emphasising the commonality of interests between gay men and lesbian women and under-emphasising the extent to which their interests conflict with each other. see e.g. https://we.riseup.net/assets/168538/Sheila%20Jeffreys%20The%20Queer%20Disappearance%20of%20lesbians.pdf https://we.riseup.net/assets/168538/Sheila%20Jeffreys%20The%...

olivermarks 6y ago

>(Throwaway because, I hope people can appreciate my comments are an attempt to approach these issues thoughtfully, but in today's climate one has to be very careful what one says.) This is a very state of affairs