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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Works for me as an umbrella term. I'm not sure what you'd want to change it to, if that is the concern.

I've also been happy with u/Defasher's moderating it.

My only problem with it is that PoC is an umbrella term, and that we don't have many more focused forums that cater to more specific oppressions. But this will only happen with a wider userbase.

For example, we quite strongly need f/blackness and (though it is not necessarily a strict matter of race) f/islam. And I'm sure that there are potentially very many divisions of race antagonism that could get attention beyond that.

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Defasher wrote

Any suggestions for literature to add to the sidebar?

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote (edited )

I'll think about it. There's nothing really offhand I can think about that is applicable for the umbrella term.

There is the Black Anarchist Reader, and the 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance comic book, both are big but kinda manageable. I'll keep an eye out.

In the meanwhile, links to other forums might be helpful if you like, e.g.

f/indigenous
f/Decolonisation
f/Africa
f/Palestine_and_Israel
f/South_Asia
f/EastAsia
f/Whiteness

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ziq wrote

I think it's very USA-centric. No one says that elsewhere.

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moon_princess wrote

What terms do they use, and in what contexts? To me the "people of color" label seems to be, at least in part, a response to the nebulous nature of the terms race/racist/racism and an attempt to refocus the discourse specifically on white supremacy.

I don't see many people saying that various groups don't experience racism differently or that we should ignore the differences of various groups like the link suggests, it's just that the PoC label is supposed to reflexively illustrate that the common issue at hand is white supremacy, that anti-black racism and anti-asian racism and islamophobia (to name just a few ways white supremacy manifests itself) all spring from the same source.

No term is ever going to be perfect, nor will one ever remain static in its meaning; instead of finding the exact right word to use, I think it's more important to make sure we avoid ever becoming too reliant on specific, powerful words to the point that they supercede the importance of the message. Jargon shouldn't be the defining characteristic of a movement, and language is only ever a catch-all, a generalization, an over-simplification for the sake of expedience.

You shouldn't ever expect words alone to make what you mean clear; so while I'm sympathetic to the point of the OP link, that certain issues are being obscured, I don't think that's the fault of any specific term. It's easy to forget that the things we come to understand are the result of long, slow processes, and that we can't just dump the end-result on people (in the form of new language and new ideas) and expect them to understand exactly the same way we do right away.

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MeowZedong wrote

Weird, I've seen it and similar phrases used in non-US areas but admittedly it's often when communicating in English and translations could well be specific to certain orgs.

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MeowZedong wrote

I have mixed feelings about this.

This article is spot-on in pointing out the need to grapple with the way different communities have different experiences and degrees of complicity with racism.

I personally feel like there's some value in having an umbrella term. I feel like it's helpful to be able to find people who have more experiences in common with me as well as different experiences so we can learn from each other and support each other. It's like the value people see in acronyms like LGBTQIA despite problems (like biphobia and transphobia) within that community, because it gives people a way to find and help each other.

I'm not sure what a better alternative would be. "Non-white" seems awkward, like saying "non-straight" or "non-men". Acronyms, maybe.

I'm not American and I've seen PoC and close terms (like translations) get used in multiple countries. That's part of its strength to me, it's a loose enough term that it can be understood but it's also descriptive.

Thoughts?

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