Nonwhite is a term, though. I think that's a pretty big reason why POC is preferred over it.
There's also 'ethnic minority' which is also somewhat problematic and not globally inclusive.
Ideally you wouldn't lump unrelated ethnic groups together like that, but I guess I can see how being able to do so might make discussion of race issues easier, at least in a cultural context where one ethnic group is privileged over all the others.
POC has historical baggage because the accompanying term "white" has historical baggage. they're pretty closely linked to the history of race in the US (not even including europe in large part as far as i can tell, which had its own discourse) which is kind of all over the place. like syrian arabs being pretty "white" versus other arabs who are not, based basically on weird historical reasons. neither term has much to do with skin color. uyghurs are probably considered non-"white" despite how they often look, cos they're from china, and recently.
of course the point of using "white" and "POC" is to work within this particular context of racial bullshit. there are other possible contexts, like "Christian" versus "Mohammaden" as evidenced in 1800s American discourse, but things aren't framed in that way so much any more.
extending the terms to other contexts, like that medievalpoc tumblr, can get odd. the (maybe a, i don't read it regularly) entire point of that tumblr is essentially that the prevailing understanding of europe as "white" is not historically accurate - in other words they're more or less in opposition to the entire understanding of "white" versus "colored", but they carry this out still using the term "POC" based on that understanding. that's kind of weird, to me, but not harmul or anything. they're just half going with the flow
What is tumblr.txt and tumblr.txt.txt? I am confused. >_>
foo.txt twitters are twitters that take quotes from foo out of context for people to laugh at. so tumblr.txt takes quotes from tumblr, and tumblr.txt.txt takes quotes from the tumblr.txt twitter.
POC's kind of poor, especially since there are POC that are as white, if not whiter, than white people. Non-white sets white as the reference point for all other races, which equalizes white with normal. That's bad.
Ethnic/Racial Minority's the best option as long as we're talking about American issues. Using it in global discussions means setting American to default. That's also bad.
What term you use should be context-sensitive. The issue of race is multifaceted and varies wildly from geographic region to geographic region.
If you're too lazy to consider the proper context and want a catch-all for absolutely everybody, then you have no business talking about social issues in the first place.
I think non-white is at least honest, though? I mean, it means what it says.
If my use of the term was inappropriate, I'm sorry. I merely meant to remark on the sense in which POC is used, not to suggest that generalizing about races other than white people is OK.
What term you use should be context-sensitive. The issue of race is multifaceted and varies wildly from geographic region to geographic region.
If you're too lazy to consider the proper context and want a catch-all for absolutely everybody, then you have no business talking about social issues in the first place.
For instance, discussing the racial history of the United States, where people are traditionally grouped into "white" and "not white" (the definitions of both of which have changed a good deal over time).
But it's not super useful in discussing say, German racism against the Slavs. Since both of those groups are "white" by American standards.
It would be similarly inappropriate when discussing British racism against the Irish (a real phenomenon which was historically expressed in much the same language as racism against black people, and which resulted in thousands of deaths, although the English have largely forgotten this).
actually there's sort of a cliche of white americans saying they understand racism because they're part irish, which is essentially enabled by the concept of "race" being totalized as if anti-irish discrimination and jim crow were like, at all related, practically
actually there's sort of a cliche of white americans saying they understand racism because they're part irish, which is essentially enabled by the concept of "race" being totalized as if anti-irish discrimination and jim crow were like, at all related, practically
I follow a guy on twitter who spent his college years in Nottingham, and he said he had a teacher who said he understood American blacks because "Irish people like me are the N***ers of Europe*.
It's not as if it's a taboo subject here, but it's not like it's on the national curriculum. A lot of English people aren't even aware of it, and it's seldom discussed.
On both sides, the understanding of the conflict between England and Ireland is often simplified to pro-Union vs. anti-partition, or more often just Protestant vs. Catholic.
To be honest, it's sometimes bothered me that Americans sometimes seem supportive of the IRA, at least within the folk/Celtic music fandom.
It's not as if it's a taboo subject here, but it's not like it's on the national curriculum. A lot of English people aren't even aware of it, and it's seldom discussed.
On both sides, the understanding of the conflict between England and Ireland is often simplified to pro-Union vs. anti-partition, or more often just Protestant vs. Catholic.
To be honest, it's sometimes bothered me that Americans sometimes seem supportive of the IRA, at least within the folk/Celtic music fandom.
that's because few Irish Americans (unless we're talking about people who actually emigrated from Ireland personally) actually understand anything about Ireland, and to the vast majority of them, their heritage is a reason to get drunk, and nothing else.
This is also true of any Something-Americans where the Something is a European ethnicity that is perceived to have a strong drinking culture.
most irish americans emigrated during the famine or similarly shitty times, so they're disproportionately anti-england. sort of like the pilgrims earlier.
so irish-americans have a long history of supporting irish independence. i think there was an attempted invasion of canada at some point relating to this
It's not as if it's a taboo subject here, but it's not like it's on the national curriculum. A lot of English people aren't even aware of it, and it's seldom discussed.
On both sides, the understanding of the conflict between England and Ireland is often simplified to pro-Union vs. anti-partition, or more often just Protestant vs. Catholic.
To be honest, it's sometimes bothered me that Americans sometimes seem supportive of the IRA, at least within the folk/Celtic music fandom.
Bono once gave a long rant in the middle of a song about how terrible the IRA was and how sick he was of Irish-Americans praising it after a nail bomb killed some people in Ireland a few hours before they had to go onstage.
As someone who's half Irish and half English, this whole thing bugs the crap out of me. I'm an English citizen, but I meet the qualifications to gain Irish citizenship if I wanted. My brother did; after the invasion of Iraq it wasn't safe to travel under a British passport to certain parts of the world.
At certain points in the 20th Century being obviously Irish in the UK was equivalent to being Arab in the US post-2001. Terrorist or terrorist sympathizer by default. Never got hurt by it myself because I never had an Irish accent, though.
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
Can't spell misogyny? Tags that no one actually uses? Wow, it's almost like this person (and others like them) have never actually been on tumblr before.
So basically the same population on both sides; most of the dumb tumblrites fall into the same demographic, though some of the worst are older (just like everywhere; being an idiot as a teenager isn't nearly so bad as being the same kind of idiot in one's twenties or thirties).
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
So, to summarize:
Easily amused people discover that other people are easily offended
Easily Amused make a deliberate effort to push Easily Offended's buttons, which is not at all hard because many members of Easily Offended outright spell out things that piss them off
Easily Amused people are amused and Easily Offended people are offended
incidentally i suppose i find hearing about this situation somewhat unpleasant despite my lack of investment in tumblr
because the 'Easily Amused' camp are also horrendously unempathic bordering on sociopathic, and they get precisely what they want out of this
much of this thread has been a catalogue of tumblr's propensity for bullying, but the kind of vindictiveness we're seeing here is a textbook bullying mentality
Comments
Ideally you wouldn't lump unrelated ethnic groups together like that, but I guess I can see how being able to do so might make discussion of race issues easier, at least in a cultural context where one ethnic group is privileged over all the others.
of course the point of using "white" and "POC" is to work within this particular context of racial bullshit. there are other possible contexts, like "Christian" versus "Mohammaden" as evidenced in 1800s American discourse, but things aren't framed in that way so much any more.
extending the terms to other contexts, like that medievalpoc tumblr, can get odd. the (maybe a, i don't read it regularly) entire point of that tumblr is essentially that the prevailing understanding of europe as "white" is not historically accurate - in other words they're more or less in opposition to the entire understanding of "white" versus "colored", but they carry this out still using the term "POC" based on that understanding. that's kind of weird, to me, but not harmul or anything. they're just half going with the flow
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
If you're too lazy to consider the proper context and want a catch-all for absolutely everybody, then you have no business talking about social issues in the first place.
If my use of the term was inappropriate, I'm sorry. I merely meant to remark on the sense in which POC is used, not to suggest that generalizing about races other than white people is OK.
For instance, discussing the racial history of the United States, where people are traditionally grouped into "white" and "not white" (the definitions of both of which have changed a good deal over time).
But it's not super useful in discussing say, German racism against the Slavs. Since both of those groups are "white" by American standards.
It would be similarly inappropriate when discussing British racism against the Irish (a real phenomenon which was historically expressed in much the same language as racism against black people, and which resulted in thousands of deaths, although the English have largely forgotten this).
On both sides, the understanding of the conflict between England and Ireland is often simplified to pro-Union vs. anti-partition, or more often just Protestant vs. Catholic.
To be honest, it's sometimes bothered me that Americans sometimes seem supportive of the IRA, at least within the folk/Celtic music fandom.
This is also true of any Something-Americans where the Something is a European ethnicity that is perceived to have a strong drinking culture.
so irish-americans have a long history of supporting irish independence. i think there was an attempted invasion of canada at some point relating to this
Can't spell misogyny? Tags that no one actually uses? Wow, it's almost like this person (and others like them) have never actually been on tumblr before.
TLDR: people are stupid.
that's like 99% of the internet
i'd like to dismiss this kind of thing as childish but people don't always grow out of it
because the 'Easily Amused' camp are also horrendously unempathic bordering on sociopathic, and they get precisely what they want out of this
much of this thread has been a catalogue of tumblr's propensity for bullying, but the kind of vindictiveness we're seeing here is a textbook bullying mentality