The inclusion of the term ‘color’ in any racial label is racist, is it not? - Anita...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/ [login to see] 84675

Doctor Anita Kalunta-Crumpton looks to have African Decent! I would take her writing as important.

Abstract
Through an examination of the term people of color, this conceptual paper illustrates how the use of historical racial labels in the US, supposedly aimed at denouncing racism, seems to reproduce that which the labels purport to condemn. With a primary focus on Blacks or African-Americans, this paper draws purely on a review and analysis of secondary information to argue that any antiracist agenda that utilizes terms that were associated with historical racism may well be reproducing the racist ideologies that justified slavery and Jim Crow laws. This paper calls for the elimination of the term people of color and related labels from popular usage for the following reasons: (1) the racialized representation of color in historical race relations, (2) the deleterious implications of color for contemporary interracial and intraracial relations, and (3) the misleading universalism and racial divisiveness in the term people of color. These issues are discussed following an introduction and a conceptual framework. The paper concludes with a recommendation of appropriate terms for racial identification.

Introduction
In present-day US, the termpeople of color is freely used in race-related academic and non-academic discourses. As a reflection of its comfortable existence in various discussion platforms, other sub-terms have emerged as its byproduct, for example ‘women of color’ (Remedios et al., 2016), ‘faculty of color’ (Turner, 2003), and ‘Americans of color’ (Feagin, 2010). The term is not entirely new. A similar label person of colour was used as far back as the early 19th century. In reference to slaves who originated from Africa, the 1807 Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves defined slaves as ‘any negro, mulatto, or person of colour.’ The legislation made it unlawful to:

… import or bring into the United States or the territories thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such [person] … as a slave, or to be held to service or labour. (Finkelman, 2008: 398)

More than a century and half later, the civil rights icon, Martin Luther King Jr. formed a similar phrase ‘citizens of colour’ in his 1963 speech, ‘I have a dream.’ In the same speech, several references were made to the word Negro. In considering the era during which Dr King delivered his now famous speech, African-Americans were the primary subject of his speech, and in this context, they were the primary designee of the term citizens of colour – used to represent the collective experiences of racial discrimination among Negros. At the time, blatant racial oppression, visibly illustrated in segregation, lynching, and indiscriminate and frequent acts of police brutality, were lived realities for African-Americans. The term colored was almost distinctively associated with African-Americans, and was used in a derogatory manner by Whites especially during the era of Jim Crow, or used by African-Americans themselves to mark their own racial identity. Thus, the use of the phrase citizens of colour in an era when the label colored was openly associated with African-Americans, and color signified inferiority and segregation, may have seemed appropriate in the context of a protest for civil rights for African-Americans.

However, despite the antiracism legislative advances of the post-civil-rights era, antiracist scholarship and discourses have continued to be inundated with narratives that oft-times conjure up depictions of historical racism of the pre-civil-rights period (Alexander, 2012; Feagin, 2010; Tatum, 2004; Wellman, 1993). Absorbed into the ongoing discourses of White racism is the term people of color (and sub-terms), now conceptualized to include all non-White racial groups, i.e. racial groups of non-European descent who have suffered oppression and who have been deprived of the privileges accorded those with a White skin color (Tyson, 2012). Although, in principle, the White racial group in present-day US includes peoples of Middle Eastern and North African descent (see Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 1997), White and its privilege are, in practice, represented in people of European ancestry, including those who were racialized historically. For example, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Irish experienced overt resentment, stereotyping, and discrimination by the dominant White Anglo-Saxon Protestants but, over time, they assimilated and subsumed into White Americans, with access to the rights and privileges of whiteness (see Ignatiev, 1995; Roediger, 1991). On the strength of their European phenotype, other historically racialized European ethnic groups, such as the Italians, were able to negotiate their assimilation as White Americans (see Guglielmo, 2003).

Thus, historically and contemporarily, the notion of people of color has applied to the racialized racial/ethnic groups who are visibly of non-European descent, particularly those of African descent. As elaborated later in the paper, contacts between Europeans and Africans on the shores of Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries set the stage for the racialization of skin color. While this paper focuses on Blacks/African-Americans, the discussion clearly has implications for other racial groups in the US, such as Asians, Native Americans, and non-White Hispanics whom, by virtue of their non-whiteness, come under the status of people of color. Like its counterpart color (for skin color), the term people of color lacks race-neutrality in that it does not apply to Whites because Whites are ideologically excluded from the racialization that accompanies the term, as if Whites are colorless.

This racialized dichotomy is clearly demonstrated in the mission of people of color to make a political and social justice statement, and to foster a social action agenda for all non-White racial groups to stand in solidarity against White injustices and oppression. Proponents of the people of color label (and sub-labels) subscribe to and promote the label under the framework of sending a political message that is purposed to identify with the historical oppression of non-Whites under slavery and/or colonialism. The term also caters to claims of contemporary White racism. Thus, overall, the term is conceptualized by its proponents as an indicator of oneness among non-White racial groups based on their shared historical and/or contemporary experiences of subjugation (Tyson, 2012).

But, given the significance of color in historical race relations, this paper begs the question of why color is still considered an appropriate term for racial identity, considering the need to eliminate the legacies of historical slavery, particularly its psychological impact that is holding many African-Americans hostage. Literatures on the legacies of slavery have included discussions about African-Americans’ negative perceptions of self, their consciousness of slavery and historical racism, and their current experiences or perceptions of racism that stemmed from that past (Feagin, 2010). It is also acknowledged that one of the damaging psychological reactions to racism among African-Americans is the internalization and expression of racialized stereotypical images, which cause damage to their self-esteem and confidence, and ultimately impact negatively on their performance in various areas (Steele, 1997).

Because of the negative connotations of color in historical and contemporary race relations, the paper calls for the non-use of the term color in racial labels. This call is based on three interrelated justifications: (1) the intersections of color and racialization in historical race relations; (2) the detrimental consequences of color in contemporary interracial and intraracial relations; and (3) the false universalism and racial dichotomization in the term people of color. These thematic justifications are, respectively, discussed later. The discussions are a product of a review of the literature on the use of the term people of color and related terms. In adopting this secondary data collection method, several databases, such as JSTOR, Race Relations Abstract, Google Scholar, Academic Search, Black Studies Center, and ProQuest, were explored. Search terms – people of color, colored/coloured people, person/s of color, wo/men of color, immigrants of color, children of color, etc. – were used, and the search revealed a variety of academic books, scholarly journal articles, and non-academic publications that demonstrate that color, as a racial term, is in popular usage in academic, official and popular discourses in present-day United States.

Before discussing the three thematic justifications for disapproving the inclusion of the term color in racial labels, the paper first provides its conceptual framework.


////////////

I believe skin color white brown black yellow red is indeed misused, misapplied, non logical. Anyone can put their hand to a black brown yellow red crayon and see that no one in the world is either of these colors. It takes away from individual experience and reality to think in this group think. I believe that MLKs quote still has the utmost reality to a human

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."