BIPOC – another term to describe me?

Before I even get into writing this post, I will admit that this entry will  be all over the place. Perhaps, if/when I get my thoughts together, I will edit it so it does not sound like a nutty rant.  

I am fully aware that language of certain words and their implications will change over time. For example, something that was fine to say in 1960s is not so fine to say in 2020. Also, I get most of us are trying to get to a place we can live in a politically correct society. It seems like the term BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) popped out of nowhere over the summer. I’ll be honest and say that as someone who is in a BIPOC group, I did not even know that I was in this group. I originally thought BIPOC was referring to bisexual people of color (I guess that would have been BiPOC). 

The intent (I think) of BIPOC is to show that Blacks, Indigenous peoples, and other people of color have faced different levels of racial injustice in the U.S. I’m not sure if BIPOC is a global term . . . just yet. I get that the word is supposed to be used as a collective term with extra emphasis on Black and Indigenous peoples, but it still feels weird to me. It feels weird for me to say it and to be categorized as BIPOC. Honestly, what’s wrong just saying Black or the other groups of color? Also, I understand that this is another way to align with other non-White people to reach a common goal. However, do we need yet another collective term to do this? Does BIPOC versus POC make a huge difference in everyday life? If a Black man is unjustly murdered at the hands of a police office for a minor offense do we care if he is referred to as BIPOC or POC? I guess technically in this case, one would not use BIPOC, but many folks do not know that. Does changing a term (or adding a couple more letters to an existing acronym) make the world more inclusive? While it’s a start, sometimes I feel like it’s a minimalistic approach.

The majority of Black people that I have spoken to feel that the term is pretty useless. Let me qualify this. Many feel that there is no need for another term to describe us, even as a collective with other groups of people. Then again, most of these people are in the 35+ age group. Perhaps, I would get different responses if I were to speak to folks under 25 years about this term. 

I have noticed that certain people may feel saying the race of a minority group will have some sort of negative connotation. Or, even worse, they will be seen a racist for saying Black instead of BIPOC. For example, I’ve seen this when a non-BIPOC (gotta start getting used to using the term) person is telling me a story and lowers their voice when mentioning race. Here’s another example. I used to volunteer for an outreach organization, and it just so happen that two women in the organization had the same first and last name. Another volunteer was recounting a story about one of the two women, but used everything except race to describe one of the women. After he finished his story, I said “Dude, you know that it’s ok to say the Black Mrs. A or the White Mrs. A”. Maybe this BIPOC term can help certain people discuss race without actually having to explicitly say the race; aka taking the easy way out. 

Ok, I think that I have ranted enough. Although there are quite a few folks who do not understand the purpose of BIPOC (including myself) or straight up dislike the term, I guess that we have to get used to it because it is not going anyway any time soon. Well . . . I guess it is not going anywhere until a new socially “conscious” term pops up. I wonder if BIPOC will transform into BILPOC or BLIPOC to include Latinos. Oh wait, I meant Latinos/as/xs.

At the end of the day, I do understand the intent of using BIPOC. But if it is used outside of the proper context, which it is in most cases, the term becomes watered down just like POC.  

Until my next rant.