Race and Tumblr

There is something a little off-putting about the way the Tumblr community discusses issues of race. I have felt awkward bringing it up in the past, for a variety of reasons, but I’ve been thinking about it so much, I just wanted to get my opinions off of my chest.

The dominant term on seemingly intelligent and liberal Tumblogs for anyone who isn’t white seems to be ‘person-of-colour’, and it really just rubs me the wrong way. Sorry, but have we gone back to the first half of the last century all of a sudden and no-one told me? Since when was it ok to use the word ‘coloured’ to describe a non-white person, as long as you say it in the passive form?

I remember, back in primary school, we were read a poem on race. It was meant to make us all think about the words we use, and even then the main crux of the poem was out of date. Here is the poem below, from an anonymous poet:

When I was born, I was black,
When I grew up, I was black,
When I’m sick, I’m black,
When I go out in the sun, I’m black,
When I’m cold, I’m black,
When I die, I’ll be black,

But you,

When you’re born, you’re pink,
When you grow up, you’re white,
When you’re sick, you’re green,
When you go out in the sun, you go red,
When you’re cold, you go blue,
When you die, you’ll be purple,

And you have the nerve to call me colored!

Doesn’t it seem wrong that the ‘proper’ term seems to have returned to one that seems to exclude rather than include, and seems to make white seem like the norm? It’s being lazy and unspecific, just wanting a socially acceptable term for ‘everyone else’.

If you really want something like that, why not use ‘non-white’? At least that includes white people as a potential race, rather than an ‘uncoloured’ norm. Why do we need a catch all term? If you’re discussing issues of race, splitting it into white and non-white is too simple a definition anyway. With things like this there isn’t just one racism, there are multitudes of racisms.

It might just be a cultural difference, and such terms are more acceptable in the US or other western nations, but from my perspective, as a white, middle-class man who grew up in an incredibly multicultural area, the phrase ‘person-of-colour’ just seems insensitive, perpetuating a misleading and misguided concept of an ‘us-and-them’ separation, whether its intended that way or not.

– Will