Ethnic Minorities vs People of Color

For a few months now I have been meaning to write on why I believe ethnic minorities should not allow themselves to be referred to as ‘people of color’. If for whatever reason this phrase is unfamiliar ‘people of color’, not to be confused with the phrase ‘colored people’, has become the politically correct way to refer to all ethnic minorities with connections to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands.

The problem with this term is twofold. First and foremost in an attempt to forcibly racialize foreigners (non-Euro-Americans) it falls victim to being clearly inaccurate. As Eduardo Mendieta observed, “race...has polarized the grammar of U.S political culture into two extremes: white and black.” (Making New Peoples 49) In effect, this paradigm for understanding the world makes Americans color-blind to any other categories that may function better in making sense of the world.

Being that the historical ‘us’ in the United States has been white Anglo-Saxon protestants males it is not surprising that groups who they would not refer to as ‘we’ or ‘white’ would be thrown into the only other category they conceive, ‘black’ or a ‘person of color’.

The reality of the situation, however, is that not all of us that fall into this category are black or any darker hue than the average European. There are Latinas and Latinos with blond hair, blue eyes, and skin so light that the shortest of periods spent in direct sunlight can bring about a sunburn. The only difference these whites hold with whites in the United States is that they stopped in Latin America on their way to the U.S. instead of traveling direct. If this is the case than color is clearly not what differentiates them and should be rejected for failing to accurately define the differences between them.

Secondly, the term ‘people of color’ reinforces ‘white’ (Euro-American) as normative and everyone else as ‘white’ plus ‘color’. In this way it conceptualizes a world in which there are ‘people’ and then there are ‘people of color’. ‘People’ describes humanity in general, while ‘people of color’ is constructed as a special kind of people, one with an additive, i.e., color. The world as we have known it has been observed by white eyes and recorded for white audiences. The phrase ‘People of color’ derives from this history. How does a white individual appear brown? They put brown paint on. Therefore, a brown person is a person plus color.

It is of no surprise that a world conceptualized by Euro-Americans would use terms such as ‘people of color’. I am sure that when the Europeans arrived in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific islands the people thought that their guests had some sort of paint on to appear so unusually (not normal to their eyes) white. In the same way it makes sense that Euro-Americans would describe other peoples in a similar way. Yet, the difference between Euro-Americans and everyone else is that they had the power to make their conceptualization the standard and enforce to such an extent that it has constructed the very way in which we as ethnic minorities of various cultures and hues understand ourselves.

This being said, if we are looking for a term to describe our reality from a perspective that is not uniquely Euro-American I suggest we reject ‘people of color’ for ‘ethnic minorities’. Looking at the US and the world as a whole it is clear that lines of power align with lines of ethnicity, with Euro-American peoples holding the majority of the power in the world while the other peoples of the world have been forced to make due with the scraps left by them or taken from their trashcans.

I hope that one day this will not be the case and power will be shared amongst all ethnicities but the first step to seeing change in the physical world is to change the way we conceptualize it. We will not be able to create a space for ourselves in this world if we are not able to see ourselves for who we are, people.

sit and think

I sit.
They march.
They yell.
They cry.
They move.
They love.
I sit.
They act.
They discuss.
They write.
They sing.
They change.
I sit.
I sit and I think.
I hear their voices echoing through my veins
I feel their steps vibrating through my arteries
I smell their sweat intoxicating my mind with desires and questions

I sit amidst this tundra asking the age-old questions: “what’s my role,” and “why am I so far, not there?”
I want to do, I want to be, but I am here
I know, I just know, that I’m supposed to go and when I reach that place I will do and that doing will be good and I will be in my element and I will feel peace and maybe I’ll be able to finally help

For now I sit

I told my friend the other day I envy the souls who are content in the places the call home
Actually, I envy anyone who isn’t suffocated by the concept of “home.”
They don’t want to go.
They don’t want to chase something they can’t see; something they aren’t sure exists.
They are in their place and their place is good.
It is always good.

For now I think

I feel when I find that place, the right one, the one that makes my blood pump as antelopes gallop through the Serengeti untouched and free, then, maybe then, my heartbeat will be synchronized with the songs of the stars and will finally fall in alignment with all that is right

Constantly searching for the soil that will cradle me, the soil I dream of uniting with like old Navajo tales, I find myself lost to even my own body. Unsure of the colors I see and the sensations I feel I dance with curiosity and intertwine myself uncertainty.

My love is not knowing, not having a home, always searching for that which I no longer believe in because my fear is knowing, finding a place I won’t leave, realizing what I believe may mean the worlds oceans are in fact filled with the tears of hungry children, abused women, and scared men, all of which is daunting and difficult to combat.

So I sit and think about where next, and I think about all there is yet to know

I know and I know. There’s the knowing I know because it’s true and inescapable. It’s the sensation I feel when I see children dancing through fields of fireflies and hear the strength of the empowered reverberate through downtown city streets. It’s the paralyzing effect that transcends all physical capabilities I might have been born with when I read the news only to find stories of bombs plague the pages until we no longer cry for our fallen brothers and sisters of different tongues and colors.

Then there’s knowing. The knowing I know because I’ve read it on the pages of books I’m able to afford in the school walls I’m free to pass. This knowledge is termed fact, but it leaves me wanting more because I’ve come to discover stories are told by victors, and the voices of the defeated are often evaporated with the burning of their societies. When there are 7 billion perspectives, what is true and what is real?

Both types of knowledge leave me defeated. I read about wars and genocides, atrocities that repeat themselves throughout generations. I study the continuous cycle of evil and perpetual systems of oppression dehumanizing the poor, the immigrant, and the black man. I see child soldiers turned to stone after drinking the blood of their brothers, and I hold orphans whose parents have prematurely vanished because the costs of political campaigns outweigh the vitality of distributing free ARV’s.

But, both types of knowing inspire action initiated under the guidance of hope. I’ve read the words of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. I’ve walked the steps of Gandhi and I’ve heard expressions of joy shared amongst those liberated by Nelson Mandela’s administration. I’ve seen a meal for a stranger can curb social interpretations of the homeless, and I’ve watched communities embrace and strengthen AIDS orphans.

So I sit trying to piece it all together, all this knowledge makes me think and question my role, my place. It has to be there, somewhere. Somewhere out there with them, a part of the movements, alongside the oppressed.

Then I ask, what about me? What am I to do with this world of unfathomable possibility and unimaginable suffering? I want to go, I have to go, but where do I go? I tell myself I will know all I need to know when I reach that place, and that place will be home, and when I remove my shoes to enter I will do what I was made to do. But, why not now? Why not instead of sitting and thinking? It’s because I need to go I tell myself, but I go and I go and I go and the road is my home and childhood dreams are my map. I’ve got nothing but an untamed desire to experience and feel and love and be and see and learn and…why am I not with them? Why is my good only being done in my future, never my present? It’s because I haven’t found my place yet I tell myself, I will know what and when and how I tell myself. So I do nothing with now. I sit. I think. I sit and I think and time plays games with my mind, challenging the passion I say I have, daring me to do now as it threatens to cut the cord tomorrow.

I sit and I think. I think about all that I could know there, wherever there may be, forgetting that I can know here. I think about you out there, doing good and furthering the cause of love, knowing that my seclusion stems from the fear I have of being and allowing myself to know what is contained beneath this flesh covering. Fear of not doing the right thing in the right place prevents any doing in any place.

I sit and I think.

I ponder the causes and the people fighting the fight. I feel if I know more, if I understand more, if I experience more, if I live more, then, maybe then, I can do and my doing will be good. Right now all I have to offer the world are more tears for the oceans and another story written by a victor in the games of race and class. But I have to be more, there has to be more I can do, and the battle ensues as I learn the revolutions and accomplishments being won every day. I want to be there, I want to aid them. Which cause, which people? Who am I to offer help for anything and anyone? What do I know and what do I have?

I sit and I think.

It’s selfish. It’s always “I” and “they” never “we.” Never us as humanity. Never. I know that we are one and any movement for any person is a movement for all. Each victory for one is a victory for all as together we are 7 billion particles in this great creation we call life. All leaves on a tree. The struggle to preserve any stem is an improvement of the well being of the one giant organism. Here and there, this cause or that, it is all one as you and I are one. When the wind comes, the leaves float together, when the snow falls and the ice demands respect the leaves struggle for survival together, and when the suns rays shower the earth the leaves are all warmed and regenerated together.

I sit and I think.

I feel you are here and I am there, we are together and together we form one dynamic existence that breathes together and dies together. Whatever direction the leaves are blown, whatever path I walk, we are connected and that connection is home and that connection is good and that connection will attain peace.






much peace and love to you all