What do you think of the term "person of color"?
 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color

Person of color (plural: people of color; persons of color) is a term used, primarily in the United States, to describe any person who is not white. The term is meant to be inclusive among non-white groups, emphasizing common experiences of racism. People of color was introduced as a preferable replacement to both non-white and minority, which are also inclusive, because it frames the subject positively; non-white defines people in terms of what they are not (white), and minority frequently carries a subordinate connotation.[1] Style guides for writing from American Heritage,[2] the Stanford Graduate School of Business,[3]Mount Holyoke College,[4] recommend the term over these alternatives. It may also be used with other collective categories of people such as students of color, men of color and women of color.

The untranslated English term has also seen some limited usage among Germans of color, especially when stressing the postcolonial perspective,[5] but so far has not found entrance into general German language and is not necessarily known by the general populace. Pessoa de cor (Portuguese pronunciation:*[ˌdʒi ˈkoʁ]), mulher de cor, etc. are in common usage in Brazil, although it has a limited, mostly colloquial, usage. Nevertheless, most of Brazilians will understand it when referring to non-white persons[citation needed]. According to Stephen Saris, in the United States there are two big racial divides. "First, there is the black-white kind, which is basically anti-black". The second racial divide is the one "between whites and everyone else" with whites being "narrowly construed" and everyone else being called "people of color".[10] Because the term people of color includes vastly different people with only the common distinction of not being white, it draws attention to the fundamental role of racialization in the United States. It acts as "a recognition that certain people are racialized" and serves to emphasize "the importance of coalition" by "making connections between the ways different 'people of color' are racialized."[11] As Joseph Truman explains, the term people of color is attractive because it unites disparate racial and ethnic groups into a larger collective in solidarity with one another.[12]

Furthermore, the term persons of color has been embraced and used to replace the term minority because the term minority could, but not necessarily according to proper context, imply inferiority and disfranchisement.[13] In addition, people of color constitute the majority population in certain U.S. cities and across the globe. However, some lighter-skinned people who do not identify as white, as well as lighter-skinned people who may be of mixed race, feel alienated by the term, feeling that it places too much emphasis on the color of a person's skin, and that skin color is not what determines race or even ethnicity or heritage. Personally I find this term to be meaningless at best, blatantly dishonest at worst. I hear it most often out of people looking to co-opt other completely unrelated groups in some effort against whitey. Basically it is a term I associate with Cultural Marxism. No offense to those who use it, but the phrase "get off my nuts" comes to mind, whenever I hear it.

It's foolish term

It pretty much means non-white

Last time I checked black wasn't even a color.. speaking in terms of physics.

Yes, that's what it means. I don't really see the point in clustering non-whites together with some collective terminology, when they often have so little in common. The definition of whiteness is subjective and too varied, non-whiteness even moreso.

It isn't that I don't believe racism exists, obviously it does. However if you take examples of different groups of people, how they experience racism, and who they experience it from, it will vary so greatly that "experiencing racism" isn't a unifying factor. This is especially true when different non-white groups experience racism from each other.

it's mainly NWBs who do this (particularly Aframs)

Often this is the case, but I have heard others do it. Who wants to hear an Asian or Latin American hipster, from an upper middle class family, living in an affluent enclave, in an area where they really aren't a minority... complaining about racism like they were just stopped and hassled by the cops for no reason? Not me.

It's a patronising term your grandparents would use.

Why not "African American" etc.

I have heard it used by elites from other visible minority groups..mainly for socio-political purposes but Aframs are the main ones who use it and it usually is because they believe in the concept of a rainbow push coalition of oppressed non-whites.

To me the term "People of Color" denotes a common identity as a minority and/or marginalized population it also extends in my opinion to historical groups aswell as people percieved as "white" being that they are of totally european extraction but align themselves with non-white populations.

I consider Jews regardless of coloring as people of color; portugese kids I grew up with along with sicilians I knew growing up didn't really see themselves as white more like white people of color it was really strange.


Of course it at the end of the day is up to the person but also strangely enough I don't see Chinese or Japanese people seeing themselves as being "People of Color" other than the activist/academic types I am around.

I've heard it used...not a helpful term at all

But it is helpful...to the political persuasion it was coined in order to bolster.

Personally, I wouldn't wipe my butt with it.

It kinda makes it seem like being "white" is normal and everyone else is out of the ordinary so I don't really like it to be honest and I would never use it either, it sounds very old-fashioned and I think it has some negative connotations for non-whites.

I don't mind it, nor do I feel offended if someone refers to me as a person of color. To me it's just an easier way to refer to all non-whites as a collective, though I don't use the term often. I can see how it would be divisive; "us and them". But don't most people think of others in terms of us and them anyway?

Besides, the implication is that "white" is a monolithic "other", which it isn't. Just as there's not "person of colour" ethnicity or culture, there's not "white" ethnicity or culture.

Euphemisms are stupid.
They only end up becoming taboo themselves anyway.

Being offended by words is stupid too.
Vagina and cunt mean exactly the same thing.

This is a true woman of colour:
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9...kfridayrom.jpg

It was invented by professional anti-racists and it is mostly used by them, so whatever "negative connotations" it has (and I agree it sounds jarring) are unlikely to have been part of the design.

Are Jews or Italians considered a "person of color"? I don't think so.

So it means more than off white, it's decidedly Non White.

Its not as awesome as 'swarthy'.

Person of Swarth.