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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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not a lot of difference between "colored people" and "people of color"
That’s like saying there’s not a lot of difference between saying “me beat” or “beat me.”
Simple words aside, there’s a big difference in meaning between the two.
Yeah, I'm really disappointed in this comment section right now. I had no idea this was something still up for debate.
You’re missing the point of an analogy. People are arguing that “colored people” should have no intrinsic difference than the phrase “people of color.” But that’s not how society works. Words are not the offensive part in themselves but the meaning and connotation behind them. “Colored people” is a phrase from the American segregation era and when that ended the phrase was kept by racists and abandoned by the rest of American society. People of color called themselves a new name or names and the rest of society joined them. People in the US who insist on using the term “colored people” in 2023 are generally assumed by the public to be holding onto a 1950s mindset or racist. It’s viewed as a racist thing to say, whether done intentionally or not.
You may be right originally, however colored people mostly means "inferior people" or "people who shouldn't have equal rights" since that was the usage of the term. People of color has only been used to refer to people neutrally, so it doesn't have thar context.
N***r means black, so your exact same argument can be used to justify using that word, but we all agree it's not ok, right? (I really hope there's no argument about it.)
This willfully disregards the history of the terms and tries to justify itself on pedantry alone. By your logic, since it refers to people of color as well, the n-word is also perfectly fine. If you agree, there's no hope for you here.
The English language does not exist in a vacuum.
There's a difference between "I helped my uncle, Jack, off his horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off his horse". Retard used to just be a synonym for slow, but you won't be bleeped if you call someone slow on national television. Things like context, usage, and history matter.
I think a better example is "I'm beat" vs "beats me". Both actually mean something ("I'm tired/exhausted" vs "I don't know") and both mean completely different things, despite using the exact same words in a different configuration. And they mean different things because they're used in different ways. Just because they use the same words that doesn't mean they're automatically the same. And even if they referred to roughly the same thing, again, how they're used and in what context makes a big difference. One is historically used almost exclusively by racists in a derogatory manner, the other is the one the people being referred to have said they prefer between the two.
"People of color" wasn't a term used in the Jim Crow South. They called them "colored people" to dehumanize them. The term "colored people" has a lot of hateful baggage, while the term "people of color" is them reclaiming the term, on their own terms.