POC

In the modern usage, POC means People or Person Of Color.  It's supposed to be a convenient shorthand meaning a nonwhite person.

So it would appear that white is not a color.  I don't think that's really the case though.

Why am I bringing this up: I just responded to a request with the response, "That is a very white person thing to do."  The individual was asking for the return of an item that had been surrendered, ostensibly permanently.  Now he wanted it back.

The asker replied, "That is a racist thing to say."

And he's right.

Frankly any such statement that ascribes a pattern of behavior to an entire demographic is, at its core, racist.  Or classist or ageist or whatever -ist you want to apply, it's a blanket statement that is prejudicial in nature and often derogatory. 

In this case the statement wasn't without merit.  Native Americans' history with white settlers was rife with broken promises and altered contracts.  The old slur of "Indian giver" is actually backwards, possibly an attempt at deflecting guilt by projecting it.

It doesn't make it any less racist that I, an extremely white person with exclusively Northern European heritage, was the one ascribing such behavior to an entire segment of the population.   I made the statement feeling some shame at the behavior of my nation's forebears and wanting to express my derision for it, but in so doing gave myself a little stab in the conscience.  By calling out their transgressions, I committed one myself.

Perhaps I shouldn't take on such burdens.  My people didn't come over to this country until the late 1800s and early 1900s and were, by and large, farmers on the northern prairies.  I'm pretty sure we didn't do a lot of oppressing.  Both sides of my family seem to be folks who pretty much minded their own business.

It seems to me that it doesn't matter what your color is, it's a color.  We are all people of color.  In this context where I'm sitting right now I'm a member of a socially dominant majority, but I don't have to go very far at all to find myself in a small geographic area where I would absolutely NOT be in the majority - I would be respected as a guest but would have no political influence of any kind - not even a vote.   Or a little bit farther yet and I would be in another different minority entirely.

So I think it might be best if we could start seeing past colors.  It's a convenient way of categorizing people but it continues to divide us, and as we've already seen we don't need more of that.