"Colored" also reads as an alteration – there are people, and there are people who have been colored. CF "disabled people" to "people with disabilities". Another aspect of this is that it puts the quality literally before the person.

I think the difference is obvious. When you put "colored" before "people" and by proxy before their person-hood or humanity, you legitimize their marginalization.

People of color are people first and "of color" second.

I think that's trying to force an interpretation that's contrary to how someone whose primary language is English (probably including all current forms of American English, but I'm not sure) processes verbal information. In Spanish, it would make sense to entitle some performers something like The Sting Section of the of the Orchestra of Symphonies of the North of New York. In English, that is very stilted and it would be better to say The Northern New York Symphony Orchestra String Section, if said orchestra was expected to known, and the string section [no caps; not part of the title] of the Northern New York Symphony Orchestra if it were not.

I'm not disputing the history or even the utility of the particular phrase "people of color," given that history. But I find the general claim that putting the adjective first deemphasizes the noun to be a bad post hoc rationalization. And it's the sort of claim that leads people to tie themselves into linguistic knots when they try to apply it more generally.

I remember the historian Vincent Harding, author of _There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America_, giving a defense of this term back when it was catching on, about 1989, in response to Black students who were afraid it was undermining their movement autonomy or identification. As I remember it, he said it was a sacrifice for the larger struggle.

Transcript

Loretta Ross: Y’all know where the term “women of color” came from? Who can say that? See, we’re bad at transmitting history.

In 1977, a group of Black women from Washington, DC, went to the National Women’s Conference, that [former President] Jimmy Carter gave $5million to have as part of the World Decade for Women. There was a conference in Houston, TX.

This group of Black women carried into that conference something called “The Black Women’s Agenda” because the organizers of the conference—Bella Abzug, Ellie Smeal, and what have you—had put together a three-page “Minority Women’s Plank” in a 200-page document that these Black women thought was somewhat inadequate.

(Giggles in background)

So they actually formed a group called Black Women’s Agenda to come [sic] to Houston with a Black women’s plan of action that they wanted the delegates to vote to substitute for the “Minority Women’s Plank that was in the proposed plan of action.

Well, a funny thing happened in Houston: when they took the Black Women’s Agenda to Houston, then all the rest of the “minority” women of color wanted to be included in the “Black Women’s Agenda.” Okay?

Well, [the Black women] agreed…but you could no longer call it the “Black Women’s Agenda.” And it was in those negotiations in Houston [that] the term “women of color” was created. Okay?

And they didn’t see it as a biological designation—you’re born Asian, you’re born Black, you’re born African American, whatever—but it is a solidarity definition, a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color who have been “minoritized.”

Now, what’s happened in the 30 years since then is that people see it as biology now.

(Murmurs of understanding, agreement)

You know? Like, “Okay…” And peopleare saying they don’t want to be defined as a woman of color: “I am Black, “I am Asian American”…and that’s fine. But why are you reducing a political designation to a biological destiny?

(Murmurs of agreement)

That’s what white supremacy wants you to do. And I think it’s a setback when we disintegrate as people of color around primitive ethnic claiming. Yes, we are Asian American, Native American, whatever, but the point is, when you choose to work with other people who are minoritized by oppression, you’ve lifted yourself out of that basic identity into another political being and another political space. And, unfortunately, so many times, people of color hear the term “people of color” from other white people that [PoCs} think white people created it instead of understanding that we self-named ourselves. This is term that has a lot of power for us.

But we’ve done a poor-ass job of communicating that history so that people understand that power.

So does that mean white people are normal? If you're a person of color that reads to me as "people belonging to the group of 'color'"

So are white people not part of this color group? The language still seems tilted towards making white default and everything else part of some additional category.

Plus I do believe Sociological Images has mentioned before what happens when you try and take people from multiple cultures and all label them under one umbrella term.

Thank you for this post! The term "people of color" is something I've been stewing over for a while. I'm glad to hear Loretta Ross speak about how the term was originally about solidarity, not biology, because of course, all people have color. The Us v. Them undertone of "people of color" (being: people of color v. white people) has always bothered me a little, but I would never tell anyone or a group what to identify themselves as. We all name our own identities, and others should respect that. I only worry that people of any race seeking solidarity with self-proclaimed people of color in fighting racism will be ostracized because they're not colorful enough.

I don't know...I just hate leaving anyone out and putting up barriers. But if the term was all-inclusive, it would rather defeat the purpose of even having a term like people of color.

I was with her until she said "That's what white supremacy wants you to do."
I think that statement was kind of a cheap shot to anchor something everyone considers offensive where it really does not apply. I don't think it's an effective stand-in for systemic anti-minority racism, mostly because it uses a racial designation to do so.
If you want to say she actually did mean real white supremacists, then I'll say I'm promoting wishful thinking when I imagine she didn't. Mostly because it sounds scarily like the term "islamic extremism." (At a time when the US really should have had white supremacy be the subject of a house committee investigation).

Regardless of what solidarity the term may have been meant to evoke, it fails. It is projecting the privilege of whiteness onto all who are described with it and in doing so it erases the existence of many, many ethnic minorities who may not be considered "of color" under current designations. It also privileges the experience of African Americans over other ethnic minorities, as the term is most strongly associated with "blackness" in the US. I cannot speak for what language may be appropriate in other countries, naturally.

A Latino man with pale skin but an identifiably Hispanic name and an accent is still discriminated against. In fact, his pale skin may never come into play at all as his resume and job applications are passed by because of his name. Similarly, though many Jewish people have light skin antisemitism is alive and well. It would be absurd to call a pale-skinned Jewish man a "person of color" and yet the Jewish people still suffer discrimination based on ethnicity.

Egyptians are considered white on the US census, yet the majority of us are not seen as such on the streets. In fact, because of this grouping, the numbers of Arab Americans and others of North African descent are not properly counted. We're simply "white." And then there are activists in the US who claim portraying our ancestors as anything other than Sub-Saharan Africans is racist, as though North Africans simply don't exist and we don't have a verifiable genetic link to our own past.

The term "people of color" may very well have been meant as one of solidarity and inclusion, but it perpetuates the false dichotomy of white vs. black and erases the existence of many people. The US has 37.7 million blacks in comparison to 50.5 million Hispanics of any race, and the numbers of Arab Americans (who are, again, not being counted properly) are growing as well.

The demographics and ethnic strife in this country have altered dramatically since 1977. We are doing ourselves no favors by clinging to language that does not properly address reality.

I dunno, I think I'll still stick to "people who are marginalized on the basis of race" or purely in this country, "racial minority groups."

This whole "race struggle" business is making me very tired. Arguing over the difference between "people of color" and "colored people?" It is amazing how many people have nothing important to do, and how many of them end up in academia or the media.

An Egyptian friend of mine with light-brown skin recently went for an academic job interview in the US, and was baffled when a faculty member, whose skin was much darker, said encouragingly: "It would be great to have another woman of colour here". My friend didn't think of herself as a "woman of colour" and was surprised to learn that in the US, anyone who isn't especially pale is a "person of colour". To her, this classification seemed utterly arbitrary. In Egypt, people come in different colours, and skin colour is rarely more significant than eye colour as a way of classifying people. Instead of yet another arbitrary American way of making distinctions between people based on colour, it would be nice to see Americans talking more about how race is really an illusion, a myth, an erroneous way of classifying human beings.

While the phrase "colored people" is more familiar to US English speakers as an outdated pejorative, its meaning varies widely throughout the anglosphere. In southern Africa, it's the term in current use (and with legal parameters) for people of mixed racial heritage. The sociopolitical distinction is enormous; in South Africa, for example, Coloured People have historically had a separate set of human rights from the legally Black and legally White citizens, and a largely distinct identity in the contemporary nation, of whose western half they are the majority.

I've encountered the same nomenclature in the South Pacific, and on rare occasions in the UK, without the offensive intentions associated with "colored" in the US. On the other hand, "person of color" has no such specificity in any English-speaking culture I've encountered, and therefore leaves far less ambiguity in its wake.

That's not to say it's neutral; Ms Ross explains well enough why it's a politically specific designation. I don't really find POC particularly appropriate in contexts that aren't directly related to establishing sociopolitical common cause between racial/ethnic minority groups, and "women of color" is often self-defeating precisely on the common-cause grounds. When detached from its Agenda, the term cedes much of its value to an unpleasant polarizing effect. I think white academics should be particularly cautious about tossing around the term "people of color," to ensure that they're not projecting an Agenda onto individuals who haven't personally claimed it.

part of it might be what is emphasised- 'people of colour' emphasises person-ness first, wheras 'coloured people' makes is seem like the blackness is the more important of the two things

"“people of color” was coined by activists hoping to bring all non-white people together into a coalition against..."

I think "white people" is the right thing to put here.

 Your student was obviously right to question this absurdity, and your inability to answer him in anything remotely resembling a reasonable way should have brought this home to you.

The fact that the painfully polite and couldn't-be-less-racist term, "colored people" became "offensive," and was replaced by "black people" (and then Negroes, then Afro Americans, then African Americans, then...) was absurd enough.  But to now deem "colored people" RACIST(!!!!) and "people of color" wonderfully enlightened and "correct" is through-the-looking-glass insane.

How can a single person not understand this?  How is it that an entire nation, apparently, can't see this?

Interesting. She does not represent me one bit! ;) Call me South Asian and I am happy. :) that's it.

"person of colour" is an absurdly racist term. it has always sounded incredibly toxic to me.
Just as is the term "white".
You say that Loretta Ross explained “people of color” was coined by activists hoping to bring all non-white people together into a coalition against racism.
This does not satisfy me. Maybe the word was coined by undercover agents working for rather than against racism. Only this week I saw that 30 years ago there were British undercover police infiltrating groups such as Greenpeace. In the same way, why would we thing that there wouldn't be racist forces infiltrating ant-racist groups and controlling them?

The term "People of Color" should be considered offensive and isn't much different from saying "colored people. I am black and would rather be identified as a black man or a person of African decent. If you want to categorize a people and you in this day and age still see people of or not white as minority, then racism as messed you up. If you want to categorize people then categorize me as a "human". No race deserves to be exceptional from the others. We as the different races of the world have contributed to the development of the world negatively and positively. So see me as a human and not group what you deem as "minority" as "People of Color." We are all humans or various ethic backgrounds.

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