People of colour

ENG: person of colour

It: persone di colore

FR: personne de couleur

KINYA: umuntu w'ibara

Now here is a word/phrase that has always sounded peculiar to me. Let’s start with definitions of course;

A person of colour according to the Mariam-Webster definition ‘is a person whose skin pigmentation is other than and especially darker than what is considered characteristic of people typically defined as white ‘ Interesting… And according to the oxford definition, a person of colour is: ‘someone who does not consider themselves to be white’. Interesting ain’t it?

So let us start from the definitions we have to overthink this.

Everybody who is not white is considered a person of colour I guess. Now, who is a white person? According to the Mariam-Webster definition ‘of or relating to any of various population groups considered as having light pigmentation of the skin.’ Fair enough. And on to Wikipedia which says ‘The usage of "white people" or a "white race" for a large group of mainly or exclusively European populations, defined by their light skin, among other physical characteristics, and contrasting with "black", "red", "brown", "yellow", and other "coloured" people or "persons of colour"’. So nature in a way kind offers you between only these two choices, to be white or coloured. So to sum this up people of European descent are ‘white’ and the rest are different variations of different colours or ‘people of colour’.

This was a word/phrase I had never encountered personally before coming to Europe. I never considered myself coloured. I mean they were a lot of other adjectives I could have chosen to describe either myself and the people I knew instead of 'coloured'. I was black, I was African, my friend was dark-skinned while my neighbour was light-skinned, Bruce Lee was Asiatic, Brad Pit was white, Jamel Debbouze was Arabic… There were a lot of other ways to describe people who are not white by default and coloured was not one of them. Am I starting to sound politically correct?

So how has my life changed from discovering that I was coloured? Honestly nothing except getting annoyed and wondering if I am probably thinking about race way more than I need to. I often ask myself, why does it bother you being called a person of colour? It is probably the unfamiliarity of the world may be, a word I had never had the need to use to define myself, and one I find completely far away from my personal identity. I have to remind myself that I am not a purple looking unicorn or a green alien when someone refers to me as a person of colour.

In a way, it really depends also on cultures and how different societies use that word/phrase and who it nominates. In the US it is generalized to everyone who is not white, they offer you two choices: White or not; which is so funny to me finding people from East Asia or North Africa in the US describing themselves as people of colour while I find them lighter/paler than some Europeans and it takes a while to register in my mind. The math sometimes does not math.

In Italy, it does not include everyone who is not European, people of colour are black, those from North Africa and the Middle East are Arabs, then in South America we have some Brazilians and the rest are just from South America lol and then we have all the East Asians who are all apparently Chinese. So at least there’s the variation? Is this a good thing?

Being a person of colour is a strange experience in Europe. When I was still in Rwanda, still black and African I was just that, me. But here being a person of colour comes with awkward moments when you are being introduced as a POC and you feel like a unicorn and uncomfortable questions usually follow. But what makes it comedic for me is that people are actually afraid to refer to us as black. Why are people afraid to say black, is it a secret that I am? Isn’t it the first thing you see on a person?

When I am being described to someone, I never get ‘Sabrina the black girl’ which would be ‘ragazza nera’ in Italian but instead I always get ‘la ragazza di colore’ which is strange as I actually find it less weird to be called black as I am indeed black, but the person of colour what is up with that. Don’t white people technically have colour too? Are they glass or water?

Maybe this is a personal opinion but there is nothing wrong with being black and I find it normal being Sabrina the black girl more than Sabrina the girl of colour.

Let's try it out, see how it rolls off the tongue in different languages:

Sabrina la ragazza nera, Sabrina la fille noire, Sabrina w’umwirabura VS Sabrina la ragazza di colore, Sabrina la fille de couleur, Sabrina umukobwa w’ibara. It sounds bizarre in every language that I know.

Loved reading this article 'des Personnes de couleur', I felt like she put into words many of the feelings that I too feel towards this phrase: (It was originally in french so the following will be some cheap translations by yours truly).

French: 'Pourquoi me traite-t-on si souvent de « personne de couleur », terme hautement péjoratif à mon sens car je ne suis pas plus de couleur qu'une personne de race blanche. Je suis simplement noire. Cet angélisme se révèle hautement agaçant car en voulant éviter de me choquer en utilisant l'expression « personne de couleur », on produit exactement l'effet inverse. Pourquoi serais-je choquée lorsqu'on s'adresse à moi en disant que je suis noire ? Un individu de race blanche serait-il embarrassé si on s'adressait à lui en tant que blanc ? Je ne le crois pas. Car qu'on soit blanc, noir, jaune ou rouge, nous sommes « tous de couleur ». '

English: 'Why am I so often called a "person of colour", a highly derogatory term in my opinion because I am no more coloured than a person of the white race. I'm just black. This angelism turns out to be highly annoying because by wanting to avoid shocking me by using the expression “person of colour”, we produce exactly the opposite effect. Why would I be shocked when people tell me that I am black? Would a white individual be embarrassed if they were addressed as white? I do not believe that. Because whether we are white, black, yellow or red, we are "all coloured".

Italiano: 'Perché vengo così spesso chiamato "persona di colore", un termine altamente dispregiativo secondo me perché non sono più di colore di una persona di razza bianca. Sono solo nera. Questo angelismo risulta essere molto fastidioso perché volendo evitare di scandalizzarmi usando l'espressione “persona di colore”, produciamo esattamente l'effetto opposto. Perché dovrei essere scioccato quando le persone mi dicono che sono nera? Un individuo bianco sarebbe imbarazzato se gli si rivolgesse come bianco? Io non credo ciò. Perché che siamo bianchi, neri, gialli o rossi, siamo "tutti colorati".'

The article if you want to read it, it is in french but *wink wink* google translate. You are welcome.

https://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/france-monde/des-personnes-de-couleur

Do you have an opinion on this, I would love to hear as many different points of view on this. So leave a comment :)