"Whites" tend to show more color on their skin.Then why are black people called "people of color"?

I'm white. But I can be colorful!!! This is wrong!!!

"Whites" tend to show more color on their skin.Then why are black people called "people of color"?
The term actually refers to all non-whites, and is considered to be bigoted.


I think all of us have a color. This song/video says it all:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HxLOQ-oo...
Reply:?White people coined the term 'colored'
Reply:If we call them anything else, Jesse and Al will get us fired.
Reply:I am not familiar with those political parties. Can you tell me more?
Reply:The arbitrariness of these labels reflects the fact that race is much more of a social construct than a biological or even cultural fact. Under the old racial conventions in the US, a person was considered black/of color/African-American/etc. if he/she had a single drop of African blood. We still tend to follow this way of thinking. Sen. Obama's mother, after all, is white, but he's viewed as black because of his dad's African origins.





All of this means that there's a lot of room for Humpty-Dumpty maneuvering on racial labeling, with sterling individuals such as Al Sharpton using words to mean whatever they want. I don't know that fighting it does a whole lot of good--you might look as ridiculous as the guy trying to reclaim the phrase "porch monkey" in the movie "Clerks II." I suppose the bottom line with groups (even those as loosely defined as "races") is the same as with people: have the politeness to address them the way they want.





BTW, the phrase "colored" is still used in English-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. (Well, they do mis-spell it by adding a superfluous "u" in the middle ...) It refers to persons of mixed-race origin and in South Africa, for example, is the moniker of choice for a group representing some 5 pct of the population.