The term, "BIPOC," meaning Black Indigenous People of Color, is an interesting term. I was part of a community meeting on Zoom here in Austin several months ago where the term was first heard by members of the Austin Latino Coalition, one of the primary groups that has been spearheading our community's struggle against COVID on the ground. As I recall, in question was a city document about this group's efforts that failed to use either the words, "Hispanic" or "Latino," that not only perplexed members of the community but angered them as a deep sense of erasure became the overriding sentiment.
In the chat, I was trying to say that it could be a progressive term if Latinas and Latinos see themselves as Indigenous, and thusly included. I consider myself as Indigenous, even if I'm also Latina, Chicana, Tejana, and Mexican American, depending on the context.
I remember conjecturing that the term, BIPOC, may have been reinforced by the racial justice movement that in 2020 was centered in Minnesota in the wake of the George Floyd murder and how that area of the country is definitely a Black and Indigenous space. (Note: That's still a hypothesis.)
Nothing I posted seemed to matter, making me realize anew the importance of not just language, but context. In this context, it felt like the city report intentionally sought to exclude the work of this coalition because it failed to acknowledge them directly, at least either as Hispanic or Latino, particularly since the term, "Latino," is in the actual name of the group.
The short of it is that we should be thoughtful of language, sensitive to context, and ever-mindful of, and respectful toward, what people want to be called. After all, what we might think of as progressive, another may experience as an imposition.
Thanks to Education Policy and Planning doctoral student, Maria del Carmen Unda, for sharing.
-Angela Valenzuela
Why the term “BIPOC” is so complicated,
explained by linguists
There is no “one size fits all” language when it comes to talking about race.
“Y’all know where the term ‘women of color’ came from?” asked Loretta Ross, the co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, at a reproductive justice training hosted by the Western States Center in 2011.
The moment was documented on video, in a clip that has traveled the internet with increasing speed since the George Floyd protests all across the US reawakened a national conversation about race and racism. After posing her rhetorical question to the audience, Ross went on to describe the alliance formed between different minority women’s groups at the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston.
“It was in those negotiations in Houston that the term ‘women of color’ was created,” Ross said. “It is a solidarity definition, a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color who have been minoritized.”
But Ross also explained that in the decades since those minority women’s groups came together to form their alliance, the term “women of color” has been flattened and lost its political meaning. “Unfortunately, so many times people of color hear the term ‘people of color’ from other white people that they think white people created it,” she said, “instead of understanding that we self-made ourselves. This is a term that has a lot of power for us. But we’ve done a poor-ass job of communicating that history so that people understand that power.”
The slippage Ross discussed in 2011 is part of a familiar pattern when it comes to the language we use to talk about political oppression based on identity. An in-group will develop a new label for itself as part of a way of talking about the experiences members of that group hold in common. And then out-groups will begin using that language in a flat, unspecific way. (Think about the term “sexual harassment,” created to discuss a violent abuse of power, which became bowdlerized over the decades.) They rob the language of its political power.
This flattening does not necessarily stem from an active desire to do harm. Often, it’s rooted in a desire to be seen as “not racist” or, more broadly, as one of “the good guys.” Anxious and indiscriminate and mostly white liberal speakers vaguely grasp that old terms like “African American,” “minority,” and “diverse” are outdated, and that new terms like “people of color” and “BIPOC” are in. And so they begin to slot in the new terms for the old without thinking too much about how the new terms are different.
“There’s this anxiety over saying the wrong thing,” says deandre miles-hercules, a PhD linguistics student who focuses on sociocultural linguistic research on race, gender, and sexuality. “And so instead of maybe doing a little research, understanding the history and the different semantic valences of a particular term to decide for yourself, or to understand the appropriateness of a use in a particular context, people generally go, ‘Tell me the word, and I will use the word.’ They’re not interested in learning things about the history of the term, or the context in which it’s appropriate.”
But miles-hercules argues that while people may not intend harm when they use identity labels inaccurately, their inaccuracy is still harmful. “People tune in to this, ‘What is the word? Do I call you African American? Do I call you Black? What is the word that people are preferring these days? I know I can’t call you Negro anymore! So just tell me the word so I can use it and we can go on from there,’” they say. “But that lacks in nuance. And that lack of nuance is a violence.”
