# Do you consider Asians to be "people of color"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 7, 2018, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477 "2018-07-07T15:44:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/41 "2018-07-08T04:12:23Z")
There’s race, and there’s class. Over the last 60 years, this country has done a fairly good job of at least trying to separate race and class. But in the Trump era, all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/42 "2018-07-08T04:54:46Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What’s “recent”? Slavery started in the Americas like 400 years ago. > > Since the beginning of time, humans have always sought to identify other groups of humans as “inferior” so they could stick them with the shit jobs no one wants to do. This post is confusing to me. Slavery has been a part of civilization (irony not intended) almost since the beginning. In America, Native American tribes were often at war and enslaved other tribes. Africans were enslaving each other from long before the 17th century. Arabs were and still are slavers. > [@asahi](#): > > There’s race, and there’s class. > > Over the last 60 years, this country has done a fairly good job of at least trying to separate race and class. But in the Trump era, all bets are off. Race and class are correlated because of culture. I have been reading\* Black Rednecks and White Liberals\* by Thomas Sowell, and the book addresses both of these issues. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/43 "2018-07-08T04:56:38Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > This post is confusing to me. Slavery has been a part of civilization (irony not intended) almost since the beginning. In America, Native American tribes were often at war and enslaved other tribes. Africans were enslaving each other from long before the 17th century. Arabs were and still are slavers. This may be true, but I’m not aware of any other times in history where there were cultures where people were automatically enslaved or deprived of rights for no other reason than their physical phenotype. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/44 "2018-07-08T05:00:18Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > No. I don’t see race or color. > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > This. > > I never classify people based on ethnicity or skin color or whatever. People are people. I wish I could say I always do this, too. But as a teacher, I often don’t have a choice. Public schools pigeonhole students, and teachers are required to look at the labels. The world would be a much better place is people were treated as individuals instead of parts of monolithic, homogeneous groups. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/45 "2018-07-08T05:05:34Z")
I don’t understand why we need to even have a “race” classification on official documentation. Even without the “Hispanic” category complicating it even further, it still seems so pointless to me. If there’s a good reason for it, then I’m in favor of it, I just don’t know what that reason is. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/46 "2018-07-08T05:09:08Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > This may be true, but I’m not aware of any other times in history where there were cultures where people were automatically enslaved or deprived of rights for no other reason than their physical phenotype. It’s almost always been “us” and “them,” and until relatively recently in human history, culture and nationality has correlated to phenotype. So, America did not originate the practice. Unlike all the other societies that practiced slavery, Western society ended it for themselves first, and have tried to end it worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/47 "2018-07-08T08:18:11Z")
I voted “no”, because: (1) I don’t use the term “people of color” because I don’t find it useful. Everyone has a skin colour, even if it’s close to white, or even bright pink. (2) The term “Asian” is not very useful, as it includes Israelis, Japanese, Siberians and Sri Lankans, who don’t have much in common apart from all being human beings. In addition, in the U.S. “Asian” usually means East Asian while in Britain it usually means South Asian, so the use of the term can be very confusing. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/48 "2018-07-08T09:18:53Z")
I think it is an unhelpful question without defining exactly what you mean by “Asian” and “people of colour” not to mention what you will actually _do_ with the concept when you’ve defined it properly. (There was a kerfuffle with a poster in another thread where PoC proved very unhelpful for practical discussions as no-one could actually tell me what it actually meant and how it was being used.) I get very depressed by identity politics generally. I have an aversion to treating people sharing a single factor as a homogeneous mass. It seems far less helpful than, you know, understanding the individual and all their motivations and experiences. I mean, what defines a person the most. Skin colour? country of origin? parent’s country of origin? parental teachings? religion? sexual preference? gender? class? income bracket? current location? educational experience? job type? political persuasion? health status?..etc. etc. etc. Is it one of the above?, none of the above?, some of the above?, some of the above and other stuff I haven’t even thought of? And in what ratio? and in what priority? do some cancel each other out? do some multiply up? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/49 "2018-07-08T12:19:42Z")
Asia stretches across the Middle East, Pakistan and India, right through to China, Japan, and SE Asia including places like Laos, Vietnam, and The Phillipines. So, yes. Definitely POC. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/50 "2018-07-08T12:32:48Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I have noticed a strange tendency of a lot of demographers or statisticians to make a “All minorities except Asian” category, especially in academics. They will measure SAT test scores, GPAs etc. and say, in essence, “Minorities (except for Asians) have high dropout rates or low SAT scores,” etc. It’s as if they are afraid that including Asians in minorities will skew their desired statistic or number that they want to present in the chart. I do demographics for a large university. They term that excludes Asians is “underrepresented minorities.” The reason it is done is because Asians are heavily overrepresented on college campuses. There are so many that to lump them in a catchall category doesn’t tell you anything about the true diversity of the school. You can have schools like UC Davis which has about 40% Asian enrollment and less than 5% black enrollment presenting themselves as minority serving institutions when in reality, they are accepting very high quality Asian students who have their pick of schools and essentially ignoring minority outreach. You lump them in with schools like University of New Mexico which has extremely high numbers of Hispanics and American Indians that they are working to recruit and retain. Pretending that UCDavis and UNM deserve the same funding for ‘helping’ minorities is ludicrous. I certainly recognize that there are problems with this since not every Asian American group is privileged and not every Hispanic American is not, but to say a University is being diverse and serving the minority community by accepting and retaining the group that outperforms every other group on pretty much every academic measure is pretty ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/51 "2018-07-08T12:51:58Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I don’t understand why we need to even have a “race” classification on official documentation. Even without the “Hispanic” category complicating it even further, it still seems so pointless to me. > > If there’s a good reason for it, then I’m in favor of it, I just don’t know what that reason is. Again, as a demographer, I predict thst “race” will go away. The reason is two-fold, first is more and more children who have parents of different races and the second is that “race” operates on the honor system. You check a box and that’s what you are. There are no DNA tests or someone who says what you “look like.” If I want to be classified in the system as an American Indian female, then that’s what I am for all intents and purposes (For scholarshipping, they typically have to be registered members of a tribe, but for reporting, they are what they say they are.) We have already started to see the rise of “alls” in our reporting, people who just check every box. The theory is they think it will make them eligible for minority admissions and scholarships, but it might be protest reporting which is what we see more of with gender questions. Bottom line is that I think that eventually some big political voice is going to tell people to screw with the data and enough people will listen that it will become useless. I’m honestly surprised Asians aren’t already doing this, at least checking unknown on their applications. If they checked black, maybe there could be a fraud case against them, but it’d be a devil for the state to prove. You can just go to court and say you’ve always felt your mom was lying about your paternity and you really think that you’re black and how exactly can they prove otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/52 "2018-07-08T13:25:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > No. I don’t see race or color. > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > This. > > I never classify people based on ethnicity or skin color or whatever. People are people. [Thanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6121505&postcount=36) for the [laugh](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15408118&postcount=13). > [@carnut](#): > > Heck, I don’t consider anyone a person of color unless the news points them out as such. But in truth, I am white, of european descent. I do notice that someone is south asian, far east, east African, or unidentified African or otherwise, but that’s just heritage. It says very little about the person themselves and I find it an unreliable indicator of who the person really is. You do know that your taxonomic system is not that much better than race, correct? Why should someone whose ancestral line has been living in a non-African country for several generations be pegged as “unidentified African” (WTF) when they don’t identify as African, culturally or otherwise? Why is that better than just calling them a black person? Guessing that someone has East Asian ancestry based on their physical appearance doesn’t imbue you with more facts than guessing they are “Asian”. At any rate, the most progressive thing to do would be to assume everyone you meet is in the same group as you regardless of their appearance. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/53 "2018-07-08T13:40:37Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > My wife, whose parents spent World War 2 in an interment camp, gets rather testy to people who insist Asians are not people of color. Asians weren’t in the internment camps; Japanese were. And how would she explain the Euros and Aussies in Japanese internment camps? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/54 "2018-07-08T13:48:23Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I also am surprised. What is the definition of the term that would exclude Asians? As far as I know, it just means non-white people living in a white dominated culture. What would you call white people living in China, for example? Ghost people? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/55 "2018-07-08T13:50:33Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > A visible minority, is those who cannot hide their difference from the majority. > > In America all Asians are a visible minority, as are native Indians, even though it’s their homeland. > > Clearly, in Asia it is the Caucasian that is the visible minority. > > Hope that helps with your confusion. Ridiculous. You could take some Afghanies shave em and drop them anywhere in the USA and no one would take them for anything but white. Asians run the gamut of skin tone and hair color. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/56 "2018-07-08T13:54:21Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Ridiculous. You could take some Afghanies shave em and drop them anywhere in the USA and no one would take them for anything but white. Asians run the gamut of skin tone and hair color. The same can be said for black people and Native Americans. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/57 "2018-07-08T13:57:36Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I think it is an unhelpful question without defining exactly what you mean by “Asian” and “people of colour” not to mention what you will actually _do_ with the concept when you’ve defined it properly. … I leave it up to each poster to define those terms as they wish. And I have no immediate plans to “do” anything with the concept. It was just a curiosity I had. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/58 "2018-07-08T15:04:34Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > The same can be said for black people and Native Americans. I agree with you. Elbows claimed that Asians are a visible minority. That is clearly not true. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/59 "2018-07-08T15:26:57Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I think it is an unhelpful question without defining exactly what you mean by “Asian” and “people of colour” I thought that’s what the question was. I.e. “Do you understand the term ‘people of color’ to include Asians?” But from reading the responses, I get the impression that not everyone interpreted the question that way. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/60 "2018-07-08T16:22:42Z")
As a bunch of people have mentioned, ‘people of color’ is generally meant to refer to anyone who isn’t ‘white’. So it clearly includes east Asians. As a practical matter it generally includes Caucasians from South Asia. It’s more debatable referring to Caucasians from the ‘Near East’ (Arab, Armenian, Turkish etc). A lot of people of the latter national origins in the US would probably find it strange (though not necessarily insulting) to be referred to that way. But besides who the term is _supposed_ to refer to, there’s also the question of validity of a mainly white v non-white social struggle that it implies. That had a lot of truth to it historically, some now, but it’s also often quasi-phony now. The issue for example of discrimination against Asians in school admissions, lest ‘too many’ of them win places at exclusive institutions based on objective criteria, is hard to twist into an issue of whites v non-whites, though some people try. The commonality of experience among Asians, Hispanics and African Americans as a unified whole v whites in US society is becoming a less accurate model of things as time goes by, I believe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477.md?page=4)