Let's All Leap on the Bandwagon
Fandom has once again exploded into a fight about racism with people competing to see who can be least racist. As usual, the charge is led by middle class women who are distinctly (but apologetically) caucasian.
These days, they use the offensive term, "person of colour" which manages to insult everyone, suggesting that everyone who is not "white" is defined purely by their colour and that "white" people have no colour (and is therefore, I suppose, the least racist of the many racist epithets out there). I suspect those who use it are too young to remember South African apartheid, when the equivalent phrase, "coloured person" was so widely and so cruelly used. If they were aware of the history, they would not use it. They abbreviate it to POC, the plural of which cannot help but sound indistinguishable from pox, also known as syphilis. Very sensitive!
Much amusement is to be had if you follow the arguments. Someone who is "white" but tries not to be racist is accused of "denying her whiteness" because the only two choices for the pale-skinned are either to be a vile oppressor of the noble savage or to be consumed with guilt for everything ever done to anyone anywhere.
They also throw around words like "privilege" and "entitlement" without the vaguest idea of what either means and they explain what "POC"s want without, for the most part, actually asking any. To me, the very idea that everyone with skin darker than a light tan has the same desires, needs and wishes is, in itself, racist.
The whole tone of the thing is racist. There are discussions of whether "POC"s are praised enough when they speak out, suggesting they are like slow children and need encouragement and rewards for trying to express themselves. When a person mentions their ethnicity, the others involved in the debate immediately pigeon-hole him or her. There is simply no concept of people as unique individuals and it is that denial of the individual, that assumption that everyone of a particular race is the same, that is at the heart of racism.
I will never define a human being as "white" or a "person of colour". I never met a person without a colour or a person who could be defined by their colour, so I prefer to treat people as people. But then, I do remember the days of apartheid and I know that "POC" and a certain N-word spring from the same underlying attitude.
These days, they use the offensive term, "person of colour" which manages to insult everyone, suggesting that everyone who is not "white" is defined purely by their colour and that "white" people have no colour (and is therefore, I suppose, the least racist of the many racist epithets out there). I suspect those who use it are too young to remember South African apartheid, when the equivalent phrase, "coloured person" was so widely and so cruelly used. If they were aware of the history, they would not use it. They abbreviate it to POC, the plural of which cannot help but sound indistinguishable from pox, also known as syphilis. Very sensitive!
Much amusement is to be had if you follow the arguments. Someone who is "white" but tries not to be racist is accused of "denying her whiteness" because the only two choices for the pale-skinned are either to be a vile oppressor of the noble savage or to be consumed with guilt for everything ever done to anyone anywhere.
They also throw around words like "privilege" and "entitlement" without the vaguest idea of what either means and they explain what "POC"s want without, for the most part, actually asking any. To me, the very idea that everyone with skin darker than a light tan has the same desires, needs and wishes is, in itself, racist.
The whole tone of the thing is racist. There are discussions of whether "POC"s are praised enough when they speak out, suggesting they are like slow children and need encouragement and rewards for trying to express themselves. When a person mentions their ethnicity, the others involved in the debate immediately pigeon-hole him or her. There is simply no concept of people as unique individuals and it is that denial of the individual, that assumption that everyone of a particular race is the same, that is at the heart of racism.
I will never define a human being as "white" or a "person of colour". I never met a person without a colour or a person who could be defined by their colour, so I prefer to treat people as people. But then, I do remember the days of apartheid and I know that "POC" and a certain N-word spring from the same underlying attitude.