Sherman Lau had never been described as ‘a person of colour’ before he moved here from Malaysia.
Our lives are permeated by colour. The sky is blue. The grass is green. Snow is white. We could not imagine a world that is monochrome.
Even people are described as colours as some of us may recall the nursery rhyme learned in Sunday school,
Jesus loves the little children.
All the children of the world,
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
At its heart, the rhyme promoted inclusivity of all humanity in the loving arms of Jesus. However, considering today’s identity conscious society, the language used to describe the various ethnicities would be considered offensive to some.
As a professor of cultural anthropology, I address the topic of language early – as one of the four streams of study in the field of anthropology, it is influential in shaping our understanding of culture. Thus, I allot in-class time to discussing the words and terms we use in everyday conversation to include or exclude. One of these terms is ‘person of colour.’
For me, this term begs the question, when did I become a ‘person of colour?’ As an immigrant from Malaysia in the 90s, this was a foreign term to me, having grown up in a mixed-race society. We primarily identified each ethnic group as Malay, Chinese or Indian not brown, yellow or chestnut brown.
Any references to a ‘person of colour’ were directed towards our European expatriates, such as ‘orang putih’ or ‘ang moh’ which translates as ‘white person’ or ‘red haired person.’
These terms came to be when the Dutch, Portuguese and British colonized Malaya at various times of its history and referenced their physical features but in time would be used in derogatory ways. (Although, during the time of Dutch colonization, the Brooke family were referred to as ‘rajah putih’ or ‘white rajahs.’)
All this to say, I have never thought of myself as a ‘person of colour.’
In the study of sociolinguistics, language is understood to play a part in maintaining the social roles in a community. The choice of sounds, grammatical elements or vocabulary communicates the level of education, race, social class or consciousness of the communicator. This may create social judgement which leads to ethnic stratification or social inequality.
However, as Meera E. Deo asserts in her article, Why BIPOC fails1,
language [also] has a direct connection to subordination, and therefore anti-subordination . . . language itself (like race) is both socially constructed and fluid – constantly changing, shifting and evolving. When using language and especially when crafting new terms to think about race, racism and resistance, it is therefore critically important that racial categories and terminology are grounded not only in history, but in contemporary context.
The history of the term dates to the French term, ‘gens de couleur’ (people of colour) referencing mixed raced individuals especially in places like Haiti and then in the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States, particularly in Louisiana and the Caribbean, to refer to free Black individuals and mixed-race people.
Though the term ‘coloured people’ was widely used during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., it fell out of favour and replaced with ‘people of colour’ by social justice activists and academics of critical race theory in the 1980s and 1990s.
Rather than being a term created to distinguish ‘White’ from ‘Black’ American society, it was viewed as a more inclusive and empowering term to unite marginalized racial groups under a shared identity. Hence, the term ‘people of colour’ in the U.S. and Canadian context is used to refer to all ‘non-White’ persons: Black or African American, East Asian, Latino/a/x, South Asian, Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders.2
However, as quoted in an interview on CBS News, “As long as this country [United States] has been in existence, it’s been a racial moment. The idea that White people are White people, but everybody else is a group? I have no problem with that for an alliance or organization because there are similar experiences of racism. But the idea that identity should be conflated, I think is ludicrous.”3
This sentiment is echoed by Mohammad Adam in his article, Why the term ‘people of colour’ is offensive to so many,’ published in the Ottawa Citizen in 2020. He writes:
Regrettably, Canadian media are adopting with increasing regularity the American term “people of colour” to describe all those who are not white. . . . The problem is putting all non-white people in one box and assuming it is fine.4
Adam quotes Amina Mire, Carleton University professor of sociology and anthropology:
The term ‘people of colour’ is particularly problematic. . . . It suggests that whiteness is not a colour. In my work, I often use ‘non-white people’ instead of ‘people of colour.’
Perhaps, we do not use the term in everyday conversation. It is perhaps unnatural to describe someone as a ‘person of colour’ or we view it as a ‘politically correct’ term used by the government and media to address racial difference. After all, we might say, “I don’t see colour,” in effect separating ourselves from racist people who use colour to oppress and discriminate.
This view is termed colour blindness, which Sarah Shin addresses in her book, Beyond Colorblind:
“Color blindness, though well intentioned, is inhospitable. Color blindness assumes that we are similar enough and that we all only have good intentions, so we can avoid our differences. . . . [However], racially charged, ethnically divisive comments flood our social media outlets and news screens. Good intentions alone are ineffective medicine for such scars. The idea that we have transcended ethnic difference has been exposed as a mirage.5
In short, colour blindess erases a person’s ethnic and cultural heritage. In his letter to the Galatian church, the Apostle Paul penned a verse that many in the Christian community have adopted in support of this view. He writes in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Interpreted as Paul’s condemnation of ethnicity, socio-economic status or gender that divide the church, in its context, Paul was really stating that these factors should not be used to exclude people from placing their faith in Jesus.
This is not to say that there was no division along these lines in the first century, particularly over ethnicity, but Shin asserts that this view forms a colour blind gap muting our voices from speaking into ethnic brokenness, especially in the Christian context.
She writes:
Our world is in need of the gospel, the Good News that goes beyond color blindness, that is not afraid of addressing ethnic differences. When it comes to ethnicity, our world needs Christian voices to call for change and reform with Jesus as the transforming center of it all.6
As the poet Audre Lorde writes, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences.”7
Using blanket terms such as ‘person of colour’ or adopting colour blindness fails to recognize, accept and celebrate our ethnocultural differences. So, rather than denigrate the use of ‘person of colour,’ or direct you to correctly identify me as Asian should I meet you on the street, let me state I am not a ‘person of colour,’ I am a person.
The marginalization and prejudice towards racialized groups is not based on the misuse or overuse of terms, it is because we have failed to value one another as persons. Thus, let us courageously relearn and utilize language that recognizes, accepts and celebrates persons rather than utilizing terms that label, divide and erase the person behind the term – even if, ironically, it sought to promote and protect in the first place.
1 https://virginialawreview.org/articles/why-bipoc-fails/
2 https://www.healthline.com/health/bipoc-meaning#what-it-stands-for
3 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bipoc-meaning-where-does-it-come-from-2020-04-02/
4 https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/adam-why-the-term-people-of-colour-is-offensive-to-so-many
5 Sarah Shin, Beyond Colorblindness. (Intervarsity Press, 2017), 8
6 Sarah Shin, Beyond Colorblindness. (Intervarsity Press, 2017), 8
7 https://www.thebipocproject.org/
Sherman Lau is Lead Pastor of Killarney Park MB Church in south Vancouver. He also directs the Intercultural Ministry program at Pacific Life Bible College.
His calling is to advance the development and praxis of intercultural ministry in the Canadian multicultural context by discipling Jesus followers to think theologically about culture, develop intercultural competencies and live missionally with boldness and grace.
He has posted this comment on this site as a member of The Bell: Diverse Christian Voices in Vancouver. Go here to see earlier comments in the series.
Good article. Well done.