Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but the fact that they’ve started making it a point to distinguish between black and “people of color” in an already redundant initialism has me thinking that I won’t be the least bit surprised if blacktivists start seriously burning bridges with every other minority group in the recent future.
It’s almost like minorities aren’t a monolith and have their own problems they want to deal with instead of being relegated to just back up singers for BLM or something.
Negro, Coloured, Black, African-American, initially these terms were phased out because of connotations to times when, historically, black people were lesser to whites in a legal and social frame.
But everything since the Civil Rights Act? It's all been to improve a 'brand' that does itself no favours. The Black Community, if there is such a thing, refuses to look inward and address the criminality, lack of morals, and shitty behaviour they exercise on one another and at people outside their race. No amount of cash is going to fix such fundamental flaws. Hence, why activists deflect the blame. Say the termed 'coloured' or 'black' is outdated, and the country shouldn't refer to them with such terms because
our past usage makes them loaded epithets. Reality is, the word isn't the problem, the behaviour of too many that the word is referring to is what's damaging. Nobody wants to confront this, which is why I expect a-fucking-nother new synonym to crop up in the next decade or two.
This is why I REFUSE to ever use the term 'People of Colour'. It boils down to anybody that isn't white, and as a linguistic tactic, hopes to not only craft this Whites vs. Non-whites rhetoric into being, but also shields Blacks from criticism by sharing a moniker with Latinos and Asians, plenty of whom actually DO have their shit together.
If you're wondering about BIPOC, the horrible truth behind the label is these ethnic activists need to find a way to racialise class and cultural disparity, without directly coming out and saying the background of everybody involved all lived pre-industrial conditions before coming to America.
Like that alleged Berkeley e-mail said, I seriously doubt, if pressed, the BIPOC advocates would welcome middle-class Nigerians, or Bolivians with PhDs, or Alaskan Natives with successful business ventures.
BIPOC presumes that Blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos with more Aztec than Spaniard in their 23andMe, all have some common ground in wanting the current country and value system gone, when in reality none of them would have ever interacted if not for the USA existing.
For what it's worth I thought it was gonna be the Asians or Latinos that would've vocally rejected POC first. For one thing, Latinos fucking hate black people when in close proximity to them, look at Chicago for evidence. Not saying it's justified, just there's more Latinos in America than Black people, and they quite clearly believe they owe blacks nothing; hence the animosity.
As for Asians. East Asian or Indian, they probably don't appreciate being lumped into this category that doesn't do them any favours. The problem for Asians is they're considered TOO successful if that makes sense. An Asian person faces stigma and is considered a failure if they don't bother with college. How is that value system in any way comparable to what POC weds them to?
Causes that sees to downplay under-achievement by way of inherited trauma, ignores friction within the POC coalition, and glorification of outright criminality?
The irony of black activists self-segregating is not lost on me. Pretty soon I think even BIPOC will collapse, since a lot of well-intentioned Native Americans and Mestizos are gonna get done in on a personal level, as the X% of caucasian in their ancestry will be taken as an unforgivable scar on their eligibility to the club