POC Juxtapositions of Ideas

From POC (People of Color), which I am one, I hear a lot of juxtapositions of thought and ideas.  Recently, here are two:

Visible or Invisible?

Where are you from? What is your country of origin?  What is your ethnic background.  POC often claim that this offensive because non-POC are accused of only seeing the exterior of race or an accent to determine otherness of a person.  We feel the burden of the perpetual foreigner.

However, when someone says, “I don’t see you as___________ (insert race, cultural label), I just see you as one of us.” Or, “I did not choose you to be on this team because of your culture.”  We then get offended that they do not see us as for who we are! POC are offended by color blindness.

So are we visible or invisible?  How do we graciously live in this tension?

Mistaken Identity 

I OFTEN mix up people’s name because I have CRS (Can’t remember $hit).  When non-POC do that to POC, the often POC attribute that to ‘you all look alike‘ syndrome.  It taps into our tendency to attribute xenophobia to mistaken identity (see reporter Sam Rubin’s mistake Samuel L Jackson February 10, 2014).  POC are offended during mistaken identity, but…

When POC do this especially to other POC we are often given a pass.  We accept that we just don’t know their name or just a honest mistake.  We take it at face value and often attribute no emotion towards it.

We all need to season ourselves with a bit of grace…