I am not white in the sense that "whiteness" is a socially constructed racial classification, but I am "white" in the sense that the color of my skin is white. I'm still not really "white-passing"; you wouldn't look at me and think I'm a white American or a westerner in general.
People will sometimes call me a "person of color". This tends to make me feel uncomfortable because I'm not really marginalized by society in the same way black or brown people are, and to me PoC is a term used mainly to draw attention to that form of marginalization.
It's not that I'm not marginalized at all because of the way I look. When I was younger, I was told to shave my beard any time I flew so I wasn't harassed in the airport for looking too terrorist-y.
Maybe my discomfort with the term PoC being used for me is that it specifically calls out the color aspect, and the color of my skin is white.
So I usually tell people I call myself "non-white" instead. What do you think? Maybe I'm overthinking this. I'd especially like to hear thoughts from black and brown comrades about this: would you call me a person of color? Thanks.
Edit: I'll probably stick to calling myself non-white, but I won't correct anybody if they call me a PoC. Thanks for the thoughts everyone, I appreciate it.
Could you give some examples of this? Understanding that race is both a social construct doesn’t negate the many ongoing mechanism of systemic racism. Those need to be actively combatted, so I’m trying to understand what kind of fixes you’re suggesting.
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I'm having difficulty explaining it well but borrowing from Bay_of_Piggies' reply, basically it seems like they take it as more biological than social similar to how gender commonly perceived. Like libs will say "yeah black and white people are equal" but do they know that black and white as they understand it aren't real?