Jerrell Ezell: Democrats: It’s Time to Retire the Term ‘People of Color’

"Last month, in the televised moments leading up to President Donald Trump’s arrival at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to be sworn in, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King scanned the room and noted, “I do not see many ‘people of color.’” She and her co-host took another 20 seconds or so to point out a few attendees who fit the term.

The moment, predictably, triggered a backlash from conservative commentators, who accused King, who is Black and a journalist, of being preoccupied with race. But it was also a reminder of the awkward, clunky and frequently backward attempts by the left (or those perceived to be on the left) to, literally and figuratively, read the room. For years Democrats’ understanding of race has not only not evolved, it has arguably been in full-blown retrograde. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the party’s canned usage of the term “people of color.”

The 2024 presidential election left the Democrats’ multiracial coalition in tatters. Nonwhite people voted in higher percentages for Trump in 2024 than they did in 2020, in some cases by double-digit increases. Democrats are now in the thick of a come-to-Jesus reckoning over these losses, and it should begin with this obvious truth: There is no deep cultural, social, economic or political linkage between Black, Latino, Indigenous and Asian Americans — at least not one that can be leveraged by the party for votes.

In November, Latinos swung hard for Trump, and the former president had a notable hike in support from Asians. Indigenous voters, crucial in helping Biden win Arizona and Wisconsin in 2020, had no such effect in the vital swing states this go-round, although a majority still voted for Democrats. Black voters remained Democrats’ bulwark, albeit a compromised one, with Kamala Harris netting 8 out of 10 Black voters, down from Biden’s 9 out of 10 in 2020. 

If Democrats were surprised by those results, perhaps it’s because the term “people of color” has subconsciously taught them to think that nonwhite voters are far more culturally alike — and politically aligned — than they actually are or have been in recent memory.

In my field of sociology, we put a high premium on the salience of terms used to describe groups and their interactions with one another. Indeed, many of the expressions that Americans casually use today — like people of color, assimilation, bureaucracy and even culture — were either coined or mainstreamed by sociologists. Being aware of this, as sociologists, when it’s clear that one of our terms has begun to lose its accuracy, we must muster the humility to redefine or jettison it.

In politics, at least, it’s time to stop thinking about “people of color.” 

The genesis of the expression “people of color” goes back to at least the 17th century, emerging as a catchall for nonwhite people. One of the first mainstream references in America comes from the work of William Lloyd Garrison, a white journalist from Massachusetts who founded The Liberator, a popular abolitionist magazine, in 1831.

In the late 1980s when Democrats and activists like Jesse Jackson first began using the term, the expression spotlighted the basic political affinity between racial and ethnic minorities, one forged around a collective interest in ensuring recent civil rights victories were protected.

In contemporary times, the expression “people of color” has been used to convey cultural connection among Black, Indigenous, Latino and Asian people, embellishing emotional solidarity and connection between the groups. It fully bloomed into the progressive lexicon during Barack Obama’s presidency. Sociologists, medical researchers, political pundits and the mainstream media now use the expression with complete abandon...

Source:Cornell University Professor Jerrell Ezell.

You can read the rest of Jerrell Ezell's article at POLITICO Magazine

I completely agree with Jerrell Ezell here. And I'm glad a college professor finally had the guts (to be clean) to actually write an article about this and get it published in a major, mainstream, current affairs magazine, like POLITICO. I've been wanting to write about this and argue this for a while now. Really, since Donald Trump became President of the United States the 1st time and his far-right, nationalistic movement (known as MAGA) came on the political scene 10 years ago. But I haven't had the time. 

It's hard for me as European-American (of German descent) to watch CNN and MSNBC now. I could never really watch MSNBC at night. Their daytime programming is a lot better and you get a lot more news from them during the day. But their prime time lineup, you would have to think that it's state-funded TV for the Green Party, or something. They're so -far-left, they don't even sound like Democrats, at least not mainstream Democrats in prime time. 

But another reason why I really can't watch MSNBC and CNN at night any more, has to do with how they talk about race. Not just their so-called analysts, but their anchors as well. Not just the MAGA people that CNN has on their prime time shows, who they know are just there to prop up Donald Trump and MAGA, or to advance their careers off of that because of the loyalty that they show to that movement... people like Scott Jennings and John Sununu, but their left-wing commentators and anchors and how they talk about race. Bakari Sellers, Laura Coates, Maria Cardona, and a few others. (I guess now the Left is going to call me a racist or sexist) 

If you were to listen to the left-wing (if not far-left in America) America has just too races: People they call "white people" (even though maybe 3-5, if not more Latinos are actually of European descent) and people they call "people of color". And "POC" are people who don't have any European descent, or people who are Latino and have black hair and a brown complexion. 

What the left-wing doesn't seen to understand (or ignores) is that Latino /Hispanic, is not a race: 

There are Spanish Latinos and Latinos of other European ancestry, or have mixed ethnic or racial ancestry. 

There are Afro-Latinos, whose ancestors migrated from Africa to Latin America, or were kidnapped and brought down as slaves  by the Spaniards, before coming to America. 

And along with Spanish, there are West Indian Latinos, people would be called American Indians in America, at least at 1 point. (Before the left-wing decided that American Indian is racist) And the American Indians (or West Indians) from Latin America are the largest racial bloc of people, along with the Europeans (especially of Spanish descent) in Latin America. 

But Latinos tend to be of mixed race. Like West Indian mixed in with European, or European mixed in with African, or a combination of all these different races, including Asian. (Just look at Peru) But according to the left-wing, Latino/Hispanic is a separate race. 

You can see why a lot of Latin Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2024. At least DJT and MAGA are somewhat honest about their bigotry. Whereas left-wing Democrats and even some mainstream Democrats, don't even know who they're talking to when they campaign for Latin American voters. 

Pre-Donald Trump and perhaps even pre-Barack Obama, the term for non-European-Americans, was minority. But that changed for good in 2014-15, when the left-wing in America and the mainstream media picked up on this as well... that the word minority is somehow bigoted and offensive. (Even though they probably never even bothered to ask minorities this, or bother to poll them) So minority got replaced with "people of color" to describe anyone who doesn't have European ancestry, or is mixed race and doesn't look European. But the fact is, all people have color. Some have darker complexions, some have lighter complexions, some people are somewhere in between. 

But if Reverend Marin L. King's America dream to ever come true, shouldn't we stop judging and looking at people based on their color and complexion? And instead look at people based on "the content of their character"? 

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