Words have power. Use them wisely. Especially when describing “the-other” August 27, 2020 – Posted in: Essay
Words have power. Use them wisely. Especially when describing “the-other”
I approach you in the spirit of building bridges. I am aware me speaking about my own skin colour can be distorted/used to further flame fires of separation amongst humanity. I write these words from my heart to yours to spark deeper inquiry about the word used by” well-intentioned woke humans” in the name of ” inclusion” to describe the experiences of humans called People of Color.
Having experienced varying degrees of prejudice based on the color of my skin – from gentle to violent living in Belgium, Sweden & other parts of the world, I share with you my personal inquiry into the color of my skin.
As someone neither black nor white, but condemned collectively from a rich, diverse plural into an abstract singular for the benefit of simplification – People of Color, my hope is that this inquiry benefits humanity to choose more carefully the words we use to describe the so-called other.
As someone who identifies as a citizen of humanity first, in my world, the American & British cultural lenses have a disproportionate say in determining the words that the populations of the rest of world have to use to describe themselves.
Hello colonization of the mind & words – welcome back in a different form. A subtler form of colonization of the majority of this planet by the minority through words. I’ll come back to this later.
But first some context about my journey with the word. Growing up in the 1980s, I learned that I was privileged to be considered a person in India, because at the time, I was a “person of color“ in Apartheid South Africa i.e less than a regular person. Btw, the definition of apartheid is institutionalised racial segregation where roles in society are distributed by skin color, a harsher cousin of the word now in vogue to describe the same situation – systemic privilege.
I was even more horrified when I learned that I had no agency over being labeled as a person of color. And was condemned to be a person of color in many parts of the world. As jarring as that realization was for my younger self – there was more disillusionment to come. I was 9 when riots & bomb blasts broke out between Hindus & Muslims in Bombay over the course of a year. Beings who were previously neighbors turned on a dime and killed the “other”.
And then I learned & experienced about the horrors of the caste system – one of the oldest ways of separating humans on the basis of arbitrary prejudice that still operates in India in 2020.
So I understand that prejudice does not even need color to operate – It operates on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, economic class, age, language and so many other unknown, unknown cognitive biases that function as the defacto for society.
As someone living in the UK right now, I’m surprised how history all over the world can basically be distorted to serve whatever the narrative of the so-called victor has. To give you a taste of what that word association “People of Color” practically translated in India of the time – signs such as “Dogs and Indians not welcome” were commonplace during British-ruled India (i.e colonization).
Linked to a deeper article below that explains the context surrounding the calls for removing the statues of slave traders the Black Lives Matters movement in the UK is calling for.
So how do I understand People of Color?
I see it as a lazy attempt to deal with the beautiful complexity of ethnicity of humans. An easy cop-out to group the experiences of the many on this planet from plural to singular.
Have we even stopped to ask the roughly 2 billion people living in the Indian sub-continent about how they feel about the word people of color? Nope. And in saying that – there is diversity beyond description within those people. They are not some homogenous block that have the same issues. And the same goes for the other ethnicities homogenously grouped together for the benefit of the whole – Arabs, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, Africans. To name but a few of the beautifully diverse ethnicities we call people of color.
Like fuck – we are speaking about the experiences of about more than 80% (very back of the hand calculation) of this planet from a global view. And the word we are using to speak about their experiences is inherently prejudiced. Like fuck.
I hear the term “colored people” from when states & nations sanctioned apartheid, with the words now turned around, and easy-peasy, you arrive at people of color. The supposed definition is people who are not white or of European parentage. The history of the word dates back to the deep American south as a way of differentiating the color of slaves, approx 200 years ago. So an inherently prejudiced word is being repurposed for the purpose of inclusion without the consent of the people actually being referred to by woke-folk on social media. Like What the Fucking Fuck? New agey enough for the New York Times to have a cartoon about the new agey-ness of the word in 19-fucking-88!
If the point of using the word People of Color is Inclusion, how can you use a word that is inherently exclusive – i.e it’s definition is based upon something you are not? Like WTF? The English language itself is gamed.
The word does a kind of violence to how we grasp power on this planet, by reducing and constricting, by treating the many as one.
Discrimination is where prejudice & power-over meet. If the word used to describe the experiences of people it is supposed to describe is both prejudiced and exerts power-over, then what is the point? Whose skin is exactly in this sick game being played here?
The term is now being used as a term of solidarity with Black and Indigineous people (indigenous to where exactly, but I will leave that for another time) but does more disservice than good by excluding the specific issues faced by Black and Indigenous people in specific cultural contexts by generalization. I understand that many different groups of “minorities” coming together can bring greater attention to the shared cause.
But I hear the term being used interchangeably to describe the Black experience in many countries, and like many other Black writers say – If you want to say Black, then say Black, do not obfuscate matters by using People of Color. You’re taking away from their experience.
What does the specifier People of Color actually even mean – both inside a specific cultural context (for eg American or it’s equivalent BME/BAME in the UK about which I’ve linked to another article below) & outside of a cultural context in which it is being used.
When asked about my opinions/experiences as a person of color, I previously responded by saying that I was born in India & do not identify with the construct being imposed upon me by society of being a person of color. My skin color is dark coffee with varying degrees of milk. I’m human, first.
Going forward, my response to this question is going to be this poem.
If by person of colour
you mean the colour of their,
blood, tears,
sweat, spit,
ejaculate, soul,
then I accept the common meaning of colour,
Else, not.
The English language is gamed.
And it’s the skin of at least 80% of the world’s population in this sick game being played out right now.
And have we even stopped to ask their opinion before imposing opinion i.e colonizing the issue at hand again?
George Floyd. Iyad Halaq. Faizan. All three were killed by police in different heart wrenching ways in different parts of the world. I’m glad parts of the western world are being brought to a halt with people demanding justice and equality – Black Lives do not just matter, they are worthy and precious.
About the other 2 names? In Faizan’s case (even in his death his surname is unknown – that is the level of care and attention his death has received – gut wrenching), he was a Muslim man beaten fatally by sticks of Delhi police ( along with a few others standing around him captured on video) as he was asked to sing the Indian National Anthem to prove his Indian identity and allegiance.
Iyad Halaq was an autistic Palestinian boy n his way to special needs school shot by Israeli forces on flimsy suspicion, witnessed by his teacher. Specially gut wrenching.
Police are a manifestation of deeper power-over, prejudice, bigotry & systemic privilege.
In the midst of a global pandemic, parts of our shared humanity are fighting to be heard after life-times of suppression. Colonization is still happening through the words we choose to describe this other, sometimes reflective of subtler levels of colonization within our own beings. Personal and collective trauma being vomited over another.
Taking responsibility for meeting deeper places of our own trauma and beginning to melt places of separation within our own beings because talking heads can only create so much trust & safety to hold diverse expressions of humanity. Sharing spaces with open hearts, singing throats, & dancing bodies are sometimes quicker ways to dissolve projections of the other.
The unknown can be an opportunity to create the reality of our choosing. This civilization is on it’s death-bed, and like a collective consciousness that looks away from Death, in denial about it’s impending demise.
In despair – I called Sonya (age 4) & Rahul (age 9), my niece & nephew who live in America to have the longest conversation we have had in our lives thus far. They have taken part in the protesting on the streets of New Jersey. Rahul’s sign said – Down with Fascism. We agreed that humans are probably made out of love, and come from the stars with different colors of skin, and are are still more similar than different
When the conversation ended, I knew I had to share this, my own body shaking because I want to look them in the eye when they are older and tell them that when the time came – I spoke my truth about color.
The words we choose to describe the reality that is to come have power. It is prudent to use that power wisely.
Love,
Bynoi.
10/06/2020 – Original article with comments published on my facebook profile –
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References
The NYT