Washington Redskins? More like Washington.. lack of... merchandising.. skins...

[Benji]

It's a sore spot for Purple! ever since someone mistook him for indigo...

[Purple!]

I'm not sure how you got there, but sure, it's entirely possible. Maybe they walked up to Canada and moved back later for some reason.

[Colly]

To address your actual point, if you're trying to describe everyone who isn't white surely you'd just say non-white, rather than bundle a huge number of differing cultures and races into a blanket term not remotely dissimilar from the term they used to use to describe 'the people on the other bus'.

I could be wrong though, but when US politicians refer to people of color (stupid America spelling) they're referring to black people aren't they?

[Purple!]

I dunno, non-white just sounds funny and kind of worse. Like the world is split into whites, and non-whites. Having the word 'white' in there just reaffirms this weird cultural thing that everything is somehow related to the white people... even though most of the time it is, and 'people of colour' really has the same problem if you think about it.

EDIT: Right, so 'people of colour' expresses it as a quality that we have and the whiteys don't. We have colour, you imperialist smallpox spreading pricks don't, na na na na na. 'Non-white' makes it sound like we got splashed with paint early on and so we miss out on the whole being white thing.

Edited June 20, 2014 by Purple!

[Colly]

Just feels like a logic thing to me. If I was talking about everyone bar black people I'd say non-black, otherwise what am I calling that bundle? It just makes little sense to me that you'd have a blanket term for everyone but white folk.

[Purple!]

Pfft, if the world was governed by logic we'd have no need for terms like 'people of colour', 'white privilege' or 'political correctness'. People would avoid hate-speech naturally without the need for sometimes arbitrary rules on what words people can and can't say.

[Sousa]

They are not; they're referring to a variety of non-white populations (African-Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, Indian, etc.).

[RPS]

Person of color isn't meant literally. My understanding of people of color or similiar phrases isn't necessarily about grouping people from a variety of cultures together or that white people aren't a color, but more related to a common experience that some people from these communities feel they have that creates an identity. The movement to use people of color is to move away from terms like minority (which people think is derogatory) and non-white (because your identity is being defined by white people). A lot of younger people are comfortable with the phrase, but most of the older folks are uncomfortable with it because like zero - it does sound similiar to what racist people used to/still say about individuals.

[Colly]

I just can't quite grasp the common experience thing, how can a Japanese immigrant who's arrived in the 21st century relate to a descendant of an African slave? It just seems a bizarre grouping, and presumably only useful in a BNP-esque racist rant.

[Purple!]

Like most things, it starts with a racist white person doing something racist.

[RPS]

I just can't quite grasp the common experience thing, how can a Japanese immigrant who's arrived in the 21st century relate to a descendant of an African slave? It just seems a bizarre grouping, and presumably only useful in a BNP-esque racist rant.

I don't think their view of a common experience is probably as precise as you'd hope. I think it is more generally the common experience of racism. Not that the experiences of racism are similar, but the fact that both experience racism. So in your example - both the descendant of an African Slave and a Japanese immigrant will experience hardships related to their race in different ways, but the experience of the hardship is the common experience.

[Colly]

Really silly question then, would this political definition of people of colour also apply to say Eastern European immigrants?

[RPS]

Really silly question then, would this political definition of people of colour also apply to say Eastern European immigrants?

I think it depends on the person you are talking about and the person using the word. I'm white and I'm pretty conflicted on the term, so I don't really want to give you the definitive answer as to who is and isn't a person of color. My guess is that people using the term probably have a variety of ways to determine who is and isn't a person of color. My guess is that the predominate view would be anyone who has experienced racism related to their skin color and has been othered on the basis of their skin color would fall under the term. The movement to use the term is still relatively young and I don't think there is any concrete definition as to really how to set the parameters of the term.

[Lint]

I feel like they can end the controversy by changing the mascot to this

[Mick]

Years ago, when my brother and I made a fictional league on Football Pro '95, one of my contributions was the Potatoes.

...They were from Idaho .

(they were badasses )

[HC]

Football Pro '95? You're showing your age, Mick.

[Mick]

Dude, I beat Link to the Past before you were even an itch in your daddy's pants.

[DMN in the House]

I guess growing up where I grew up, in an environment that would probably be best described as a plurality, skews my whole view of racism. While 'white' people likely made up the largest single group, they were not a majority of the population, which was over 50% Asian, though, of course, there is a huge cultural difference between Japanese and, say, Vietnamese. Thus, I, essentially, grew up where there seemed to be very little racism (key word, 'seemed'), and an emphasis on multiculturalism. Hence, I tend to refer to people based on their cultural background, so, a person who's family comes from Mexico is 'Mexican', while a person who's family comes from Japan is 'Japanese', even though they've been in the US longer than I have. Of course, 'white' people and 'black' people are white and black, and most black people I've talked seem to follow that.

Of course, I tend to have problems with the term 'white' and it's connotations, which can be best summed up with the following song;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkrHYHqChlI

[Matt]

That's fine then, fuck the Portuguese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousa_(surname)

Sousa (European Portuguese: [ˈsozɐ]) or de Sousa (literally, from Sousa) is a commonPortuguese language surname, especially in Portugal,

Ever since I found that out a few months back I have been debating bringing it up here, but I thought it'd be more fun to see if somebody else did first.

"Asian" is another term that's bothered me for a while, mostly because Asia is really, really large and incorporates a huge chunk of land beyond the "Far East" or whatevz.

:/