Building off some good discussion in the other thread today. I’m thinking about how can white Hexbear users can be better here, and in leftist spaces, AND when we engage with the broader BIPOC communities? What are we doing wrong, and what can we do that’s better?
And I 100% get that’s it’s not on marginalized folks to explain it to us. I do. It’s just, at this moment I’m trying not to get overwhelmed with feeling like it’s just not possible to make the world better. Not even get us to socialism, just getting things to be a tiny bit better. I don’t know what else to do. So I’m reaching out to my BIPOC comrades with an open hand. If you feel like sharing, please do.
For the white folks, we need to be better. We do. It may not be comfortable to hear, but we do. Maybe we’re not as bad as the libs and the chuds on this but that’s not a valid measuring stick. Come on.
anti-blackness and anti-indigeneity manifest in POC communities as well, especially those that are closer to the whiteness boundary and could theoretically cross it one day
So it's better and sensible to distinguish and specify for the sake of simply acknowledging that basic fact
Why not add a letter so it has a consistent internal logic to it?
BIOPOC- Black, Indigenous, and Other People Of Color. At least that wouldn't sound redundant and disjointed. BIPOC makes it sound like Black and Indigenous people are separate from POC.
Who knows, maybe as soon as 5 years from now people will decide that whatever we're using
feels old and not fresh anymoredoesn't adequately address the historical injustices faced by certain demographics, and we'll add and/or alter another couple letters, and so on."other" people of color is already covered by the POC part of the term, anti-blackness and anti-indigenity are distinguished because white supremacists historically weren't simply preaching to their own, they acquired numerous converts in various poc demographics, thru colonial structures anti-blackness and anti-indigeneity hold a unique salience, they're both global and systemic on pan-continental scales that defies the usual regional structural racism other poc groups encounter
For instance, it makes no sense for me to sit here and pretend my home country (which is non-white) can be covered by the term poc while large portions of the population hold severe anti-black views, so BIPOC becomes a useful term
End of the day the term exists to knowledge the fact white supremacists don't actually have to be white, in fact I'd go as far and assert the majority of white supremacists in the world aren't white