Rolling Thread on Race 2020

Cue my post about corner stores and delis in primarily Black and POC neighborhoods above

i feel like anyone who has ever heard burn, hollywood, burn kind of knows what has needed to happen to this “brand”

i was trying to think of where we’d had this conversation before and i was like OH YEAH

OMG I WANT THIS AMAZING RONALDINHO BOTTLE OPENER

whole wheat mix is pretty good

and James "We're Not Defunding the Police" Clyburn is a bigger problem

In September 2012, The Guardian posted a story on its facebook page regarding models wearing Aunt Jemima earrings on a catwalk at Dolce and Gabbana during Milan fashion week. As the article points out, ‘some might argue that they’re harmless, even cute, but there’s nothing cute about two white men selling minstrel earrings to a majority non-black audience. There wasn’t a single black model in Dolce and Gabbana’s show, and it’s hard not to be appalled by the transparent exoticism in sending the only black faces down the runway in the form of earrings.’Aunt Jemima is still our feminist issue because she stands for the continued silencing of black women’s exploitation around the world. As one of the most recognizable images of black women globally, why aren’t more people enraged by the fact that she remains frozen in time? As The Guardian aptly concludes, ‘when you’re explicitly pandering to such a shameful era of western racism and colonialism, it’s time to move on to the future.’I could not agree more. As Patricia Hill Collins argues, we need to place the ‘diverse patterns of Black women’s activism within the border zone of Black feminist nationalism/ Black nationalist feminism … as well as within a broader, global framework of feminist nationalism...in order to create space for much needed dialogue among Black women activists … as well as alliances with other groups of racial ethnic women.’58 Aunt Jemima is not a Black feminist issue; she must be the issue of this generation of feminists, artists, and activists, and then perhaps we will finally be able to wipe that smile off her stereotyped and fictional face.

https://www.drcherylthompson.com/aunt-jemima/2020/6/23/contesting-the-aunt-jemima-trademark-through-feminist-art-why-is-she-still-smiling

are POC who aren’t black or indigenous included in BIPOC?

never heard 'BIPOC' until a month ago, now the term is everywhere and I guess it has replaced POC??? what was wrong with saying POC? is this referring to a different group of ppl? is it B and I POC or is it B or I POC or what? does anyone see BIPOC and not think 'bisexual POC'?... for real who is in charge of changing these terms every few months?? its getting a liiiiittle silly no?

https://www.rd.com/article/what-does-bipoc-stand-for/

I was familiar with it for a few years now, from academia and academia-adjacent social media, as a term meaning "Black and/or Indigenous People of Color." Specifically used in postcolonial contexts, on the assumption that there are shared axes of oppression and histories of contestation. Never really seemed like a problematic concept to me, but if people are using it as a one-to-one replacement for "POC" in their vocabulary then they're obviously missing the point entirely.

The couple of times I've seen it, it was used as an ostensibly more exact replacement for POC, to mean "black, indigenous, AND people of colour", like Neanderthal's link says.

Yeah I'm doing some google scholar searches now ("bipoc" appears a few times within articles citing Lawrence & Dua's influential 2005 paper, but no earlier than 2017) and it's looking like my interpretation of it as a term specifically coined to push for a rapprochement between Indigenous and Black antiracist movements is not the majority understanding!

are Jews bipoc

xp Neanderthal i had heard some conflicting accounts but this is what i understood (from the link you sent), thx

BIPOC stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.” It seeks to highlight the Black and Indigenous communities and, as the BIPOC Project explains, the “unique relationship to whiteness that Indigenous and Black (African Americans) people have, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to white supremacy for all people of color within a United States context.”

why isn't it IBPOC

never heard 'BIPOC' until a month ago, now the term is everywhere

I never heard people saying 'never heard 'BIPOC' until a month ago' until a couple of years ago, now the sentiment is everywhere

are Jews bipoc

in most cases no, we are not

why isn't it IBPOC

fwiw in Canada, I've seen a push to order it this way

xp sorry to belabor but this is actually pertinent to me and i would like clarification...

do you mean by 'in most cases no' that most jews themselves aren't BIPOC but some are (i.e. darker skinned sephardi), or that certain people would consider jews 'POC' and certain people would not? i have heard differing views on the latter point.

What is a context where it would be necessary to use this term, i.e. where you need to refer to all people of colour as a group but also need to highly the distinctiveness of two sub-groups?

fwiw in Canada, I've seen a push to order it this way

What is the argument for using this term in Canada? What is the unique relationship to white supremacy held by black Canadians vs all other people of colour? I understand that slavery existed in the Canadian colonies until a few decades prior to Confederation, but I don't think the majority of black Canadians are descendants of slaves or that anti-black policy plays the same kind of foundational role in Canadian nationhood?

*highlight

xpost I am not an expert on Canada or Canadian histsory, but I was under the impression that the majority of Black Canadians trace their ancestry to Black communities throughout the New World (Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana, Trinidad, etc) that were originally established as slave colonies.

I can't speak to the specific legal or policy challenges those groups have encountered as Canadians; but I don't think it's like, wildly intellectually dishonest to characterize them as "Canadian Descendants of Slavery" just because the 'slavery' part was historically and geographically distant from the 'Canadian' part.

xpost to esby— from my understanding, only Jews that are racialized (as Black, Latino, etc) would be considered BIPOC.

xposts to Sund4r and bernard— Bernard's got it right— many who escaped the colonies made their way to Canada because the US was such an obvious shitshow, what with the whole slavery into Jim Crow thing.

xpost just to Sund4r: I think that the highlighting of distinctiveness comes from the fact that these discourses often originate in academic and left circles in the US, which rightly view the US as being founded on dual original sins, namely the genocide of the Indigenous population and chattel slavery. Thus, these two groups get highlighted as a way of bringing forth the ways in which those histories have continued unabated.

That's fair, bernard. I wasn't being accurate: "descendants of Canadian slaves" is closer to what I meant. I do think there's a difference from the American 'original sin' in this regard but idk, insofar as we are still subjects of the Crown, maybe there isn't?

I can't do it justice right now, but the first chapter of Robin Maynard's book Policing Black Lives is a good historical summary of anti-blackness in Canada. One thing that struck me was how extensive formal segregation was (e.g., in the military during both world wars, in schools, orphanages).

OK, I'll look into it, thanks for the recommendation. I was thinking of e.g. the history of the Chinese in Canada, with differential pay on the railroad, the head tax, the inability to vote.

tbc I think the questions you asked are worth raising. My knowledge of Canadian history is extremely patchy, so I found the chapter I mentioned illuminating but I didn't raise it as a counterpoint.

Take some protests right now in Van around BLM and the city's destruction of Hogan's Alley— and that's just more recent history, too. The Maynard book is good.

btw it's Robyn Maynard (not Robin)

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/segregation-of-asian-canadians
xps

I never heard people saying 'never heard 'BIPOC' until a month ago' until a couple of years ago, now the sentiment is everywhere

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, June 28, 2020 12:25 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

1st use on ilx is less than 3 weeks ago... do you work in the laboratory that invents these terms???? what do you ppl do exactly???

esby shut the fuck up

^^^^
This.

I mean, he replied to snark with snark. I don't think "BIPOC" has been a widely used and understood term for ages among the general population.

what do you ppl do exactly?

I am authentically surprised that "BIPOC" only appears on ILX so recently, I don't think of it as brand-new!

I think I am a BIPOC, being a Latino, but I don't know for sure. I'd never heard the term until recently.

I mean, he replied to snark with snark. I don't think "BIPOC" has been a widely used and understood term for ages among the general population.

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Monday, June 29, 2020 1:09 PM bookmarkflaglink

this is a dude who's done nothing but troll for the last year and just decided to have real conversations in the last week, so hence the harsh reaction.

hey, dumb question: can anyone recommend a place to get Black Lives Matter apparel online that benefits black-owned businesses? The BLM webshop doesn't have much.

I've never heard of BIPOC until the last month and it sounds like some kind of expressway ("A tractor-trailer accident at the I-95 merge has traffic backing up all the way to the BIPOC this afternoon.") or ancient monster ("BEWARE THE BIPOC!"). I'll probably just say Black or First Nations or whatever instead.

I mean, he replied to snark with snark. I don't think "BIPOC" has been a widely used and understood term for ages among the general population.

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Monday, June 29, 2020 11:09 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

for real. thank you. some of you can actually fix your tone. + no, it demonstrably hasn't been in use among the near entirety of the general public for more than about a month.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=bipoc

if you have been using the word "BIPOC" so long in your peer group that it is passe, there's a good chance you either know or are yourself the originator of the term.

i work with arts organizations who focus on inclusivity and moving the culture forward, what do you do exactly?
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Monday, June 29, 2020 11:18 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i am a private individual who has no singular or group interest in workshopping what words are ok for people to use or what thoughts are ok for people to think. if your mission is to move the culture forward i would strongly suggest avoiding dehumanizing jargon terms like "BIPOC".

again, what was wrong with "POC"? at least when you pronounce "P" "O" "C" it is easy to remember that you are talking about "P"eople.... with BIPOC you are just talking about 'BIPOC'. i don't want to speak for any of my friends but i don't think suddenly becoming BIPOC is helpful to them in any way.

this is a dude who's done nothing but troll for the last year and just decided to have real conversations in the last week, so hence the harsh reaction.

― I hear that sometimes Satan wants to defund police (Neanderthal), Monday, June 29, 2020 11:39 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i am not a troll, my opinions quite often differ from the groupthink of this board and i don't often have the energy to get in a big citation battle about it, but that doesn't mean i'm wrong and any of you guys are right lol. it's always the opposite. i'm ahead of my time. in years 'BIPOC' will undoubtedly itself become outdated and racist and i will be hipsterring loudly about how i was against adopting the term from the very start.

See, this is why Brad's response was the correct one: engaging with this disingenuous fuck is always a bad move.

my opinions quite often differ from the groupthink of this board

popular troll belief

Also popular troll move to not be interested in the least of learning about why this particular term might be gaining traction. No curiosity at all.

Black people who don't like/want to use POC just tend to call themselves "Black", in my experience

i am a private individual who has no singular or group interest in workshopping what words are ok for people to use or what thoughts are ok for people to think. if your mission is to move the culture forward i would strongly suggest avoiding dehumanizing jargon terms like "BIPOC".

anyway, where do i buy a shirt?

expect the thoughtpolice shortly

*refreshes site new answers* 😎

now who's ready to abolish the police

again, what was wrong with "POC"? at least when you pronounce "P" "O" "C" it is easy to remember that you are talking about "P"eople.... with BIPOC you are just talking about 'BIPOC'. i don't want to speak for any of my friends but i don't think suddenly becoming BIPOC is helpful to them in any way.

I don't like POC but I use POC when talking to white allies, because it seems to be the most palatable to white sensibilities. I recognize that POC is a loaded and problematic term... To misquote W. Kamau Bell, it's just an 'of' away from colored people. But: fragility shit. I use 'brown' when I'm with other brown people, although some white people have lately decided to inform me that I shouldn't be doing that.

I think that POC/BIPOC discussion is a kind of insidery correctness-policing and has been appropriated a woke-signal and symbolic argument among allies. When POC/BIPOC activists have the discussion about inclusive terms, it's generally about determining the contours of shared experiences and affinities; when white people have it, it's about controlling the language others should use in referring to themselves.