Letters to the Editor: How useful is ‘person of color’? Look at the experiences of Black Americans and Hispanics in Florida. The experience they live in is far from universal. So how useful is this designation?
In the context of the racial climate that is alive in Florida, we in the Black community feel the term “person of color” is somewhat inaccurate. It also raises concerns in the area of race relations.
How many times have you heard nonwhites say, “Oh, what an interesting person.”
Is it really possible that everyone in this country is an interesting person?
Is it a fair assessment to call a Black or Mexican American person “interesting”?
The following is a response I wrote to the letter to the editor by a white male, Robert D. C.
A couple of days ago, I received a letter in the mail from a white man who is offended that I didn’t address his letter on my website, www.colorlines.com. In the letter, the writer said, “I love your website.” I’m beginning to think everyone in the United States loves to read white people’s opinions.
But the way he writes, and the tone of his letter, is a little offensive. His letters do nothing to further the discussion on race — instead, he takes the conversation off track. He is taking the conversation away from us. He doesn’t help us by making us feel stupid or as if he is our friend. Most of us are tired of the race conversation, tired of talking to white people about race. We have the same experience with white people we do with black people. We know we are not their friend. Most are just interested parties that don’t give a shit about us.
The letter writer’s words are the kind one might write to a group of African-Americans he doesn’t know or that he has never met, “you people are all so different from me.” “You must be different from your parents and grandparents because you are in the bottom 2 percent of earners, black people earn 13 percent of the national income, your education is next to nil, you have no power so you must be lower than my friends.”
What the letter writer doesn’t know is that we are not as different from each other as he thinks we are. And as a Hispanic man I find myself asking,