# 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:** 4
**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, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/61 "2018-07-08T17:36:01Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > 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. well, the question was > [@](#): > > do you consider Asians to be “people of colour” which to me at least seems to be exploring the what an Asian is rather than what the term PoC means. Regardless, the point stands that neither is well defined. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/62 "2018-07-08T18:03:15Z")
I don’t see how they are poorly defined. Every use I can think of for “people of color” is for all non-white people. It’s a way to discuss all the racial minorities as a group. And Asian in the US always means East Asian, as in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, etc., and not South Asian or Middle Eastern. I mean, yes, race is a social construct, but it’s not like social constructs don’t exist. Race is a classification based on physical charactersistics. I know many people who can’t tell people apart from the different East Asian countries, but none who couldn’t tell the difference between Chinese and Indian people, or Koreans and Israelis. It’s fairly easy to me to see that the word Asian replaces what we used to call “Chinese” as a synecdoche, or “yellow” back when colored names were okay. As for POC, I can just pull up [the Wikipedia page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color) I presume those spelling it “colour” are not in the US, and that is why you are not as familiar with the definition of either term, as used by Americans. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/63 "2018-07-08T18:22:31Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t see how they are poorly defined. Every use I can think of for “people of color” is for all non-white people. It’s a way to discuss all the racial minorities as a group. And Asian in the US always means East Asian, as in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, etc., and not South Asian or Middle Eastern. Emphasis added. No, that’s not true. South Asians are more and more often put in the “Asian” category in the US. That is particularly true where I live (in CA) where there are lots and lots of South Asians. Someone who has been in the news quite a bit lately is [a perfect example:](https://ballotpedia.org/Kamala_Harris) > [@](#): > > [Kamala] Harris is the former Attorney General of California. She served in the position from 2011 to 2017. When she took office in 2011, Harris became the state’s first female, first black and first Asian American attorney general, as well as the first Tamil attorney general in U.S. history. As for the Middle East that has all sorts of problem of its own. Iran, for instance, is often lumped in as a Middle Eastern country, but it is undeniably an Asian country. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/64 "2018-07-08T18:50:15Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > These discussions are why the concept of “race” is such bullshit. All there are, are phenotypes. Phenotypes are different combinations of facial features (and to a lesser extent, body types) and skin pigmentation. Certain phenotypes predominate in certain geographical regions, but even in those cases there is a wide variety, and there are infinite number of phenotypes created as people create new children. That’s all there is. The idea of dividing humans into discrete “races” is, firstly, arbitrary, and secondly, rather recent. > > What “race” is [this man?](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Sharipov.jpg) Try to ignore the bizarre eyebrow. I know, it’s hard. The guy is from Uzbekistan. Most people, if they didn’t know that, and they saw his face in isolation of the uniform and nametape, would be totally unable to tell you what the hell “race” he is. Is he “white” or “Asian”? > > My mother’s family comes from the Baltic region of Europe. Well, there are people on her side of the family who almost look like that guy. Anyone who has Finnish, Estonian, or Icelandic ancestry can wind up with eyes like that. So can Eastern Europeans with ancestry from the “stan” areas that the above poster mentioned. You have any idea how far into Europe the genetics of the Central Asian and/or Mongol peoples go? Very far. > > All this racial shit is going to be less and less relevant in the next hundred years as the world gets smaller and the “races” start mixing more, and hundreds of thousands of new phenotypes are created that blend features from all the geographical regions of the world. And finally someday people will accept these phenotypes for what they are: solely cosmetic. Cosmetic features can be interesting, they can be intriguing and alluring and they can generate interesting discussions and endless taxonomical classifications. But in the end, they’re still just cosmetic. I often see people cite examples of “See this person? He’s right in between what you could consider white or Hispanic, or black vs. Arab, so this shows that race doesn’t exist.” That’s like saying that “This flavor is right in between sweet and salty, so you can’t say there is such a thing as taste.” It’s cherry-picking. Sure, with some cases, some people may be a perfect blend of features that you can’t tell race. But nobody would say that a black man with black skin, black hair brown eyes and a white person with blonde hair and blue eyes are literally no different in appearance. Also, people who say “I don’t see color” DO, in fact, see color or race; it’s humanly impossible not to. They just make less of a deal of it. ---
**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, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/65 "2018-07-08T19:08:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It’s cherry-picking. Sure, with some cases, some people may be a perfect blend of features that you can’t tell race. But nobody would say that a black man with black skin, black hair brown eyes and a white person with blonde hair and blue eyes are literally no different in appearance. I mean… First of all, the thread is about Asians specifically, which is a gigantic category with so many different countries and cultures, it’s impossible to just lump them into one “race” and debate over whether that race is “colored” or not. You’ve got Chinese and Korean people with skin the same color as Europeans. So you’re really talking about eyes and nose, not “color”, to diffrentiate their phenotypes from European ones. With “black” people, there are African-Americans who have light skin, lighter in some cases than the skin of many “white” people, yet they themselves would identify as black…then what do you call their kids, if they have kids with a European? “Biracial”, most people would say, though I think that’s a stupid term…then say that kid grows up and marries someone from Finland and they have a child who’s 1/4 African ancestry, and that child has only the faintest traces of any African features, and suddenly he’s considered “white.” The grandson of a “black” man is now “white”…it just makes no sense to me, I’m sorry. These are phenotypes, and as I’ve said, certain phenotypes correlate with geographical regions. This situation has caused the concept of “race” to develop as an idea, but as the world gets smaller and people from varying geographical regions start mixing more with each other, it will eventually become obsolete. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/66 "2018-07-08T19:10:04Z")
OK I see, gotcha. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/67 "2018-07-08T21:44:36Z")
I don’t think of Asians, by which I mean Japanese, Koreans, Thais, Chinese, and Vietnamese, as PoC. Back in the day, “colored person” was one of the polite terms for black people. I figure it is just swapping the word order around. So for me, Person of Color means Black Person. Nowadays it appears to carry a connotation of disadvantage, and generally (apart from Hmong, at least in my area), Asians aren’t disadvantaged. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/68 "2018-07-08T22:12:08Z")
My ancestry is Eastern European, roughly half the family has olive skin and clearly visible epicanthic folds, so I’m going to go with “no.” Whatever purpose it might once have had, the POC term has lost all utility. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/69 "2018-07-08T23:33:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Emphasis added. No, that’s not true. South Asians are more and more often put in the “Asian” category in the US. That is particularly true where I live (in CA) where there are lots and lots of South Asians. I have to disagree. At least partially, anyway. I think by and large “Asian” even in the BA still _most often_ = East Asian. It may be changing, but like the now largely complete abandonment of the term Oriental( which was being debated hotly on this board back in the early 2000’s )I think that definition is dying a pretty slow death. I’ll be perfectly honest and say that East Asian is what automatically comes to mind to me and that was what I was thinking of when I responded to this thread. _Intellectually_ I realize folks in Afghanistan are Asian. But despite living in a neighborhood that is virtually a little India, I haven’t internalized that as a definition. Probably because I’m getting old ;). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/70 "2018-07-09T00:00:32Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > I have to disagree. At least partially, anyway. I think by and large “Asian” even in the BA still _most often_ = East Asian. Ditto around here. I use the term “South Asian” quite regularly (since I work in the community), but my experience is that using the term “Asian” without any qualifier generally means “East Asian/Southeast Asian” to most people around here. I don’t think the vast majority of people think of “Asian” as including the group of Asians from Central Asia or the subcontinent. I may be wrong, but my experience is that people forget that Indians, Pakistanis, Bangledeshi, etc. are Asian, much less Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/71 "2018-07-09T00:00:39Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > it just makes no sense to me, I’m sorry. > > These are phenotypes, and as I’ve said, certain phenotypes correlate with geographical regions. This situation has caused the concept of “race” to develop as an idea, but as the world gets smaller and people from varying geographical regions start mixing more with each other, it will eventually become obsolete. It doesn’t have to make sense to you to be a cultural reality. I sure hope it’ll be obsolete some day (not that all cultures will blend, but that skin color won’t be linked so tightly to assumptions about culture, especially negative and mythical assumptions)–but for now, people have a generally similar understanding of what races there are within the United States, and people operate accordingly. Race is as real as money, and just as powerful. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/72 "2018-07-09T01:08:43Z")
I’ve never felt any need to classify people in that way. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/73 "2018-07-09T01:17:09Z")
I would consider them to be. Then again, i’d consider myself to be a person of colour, several colours actually parts that dont see the sun are a lovely shade of casper the ghost parts that see it a lot are a nice roast chicken colour, and from there it varies with sun exposure. None of me looks pink though, at least nothing that isnt supposed to actually be inside rather than outside ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/74 "2018-07-09T01:28:35Z")
“Persons of Color” is not a particularly useful phrase and it’s one I’ve never used in my life - I don’t know exactly who would be included/excluded from that group. Some ‘white’ people have a permanent beautiful bronze or deep brown skin and some ‘asians’ have extrordinarily pale skin. So obviously skin color is not detrerministic of ‘race’. Similarly with hair and eye color. Would you call a black-haired brown eyed Irish guy a person of color? No. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/75 "2018-07-09T02:13:29Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Asians weren’t in the internment camps; Japanese were. And how would she explain the Euros and Aussies in Japanese internment camps? Japanese aren’t Asian? Japanese aren’t people of color? The internment camps targeted whites? What’s your point? How about if I just say, based on her own experiences, and that of our mixed race children, and the experiences other members have been through over multiple generations here, my wife feels any person who doesn’t believe persons with stereotypical “Asian” features are persons of color (at least in the U.S. and for the purposes of this poll) is either naive or in denial. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/76 "2018-07-09T05:25:52Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > The kind of people who care about other people’s “White-ness” are, historically, inclined to use “Mediterranean” as a euphemism for “Non-White”. Nowadays, in America, we tend to forget the Protestant part of “White-Ango-Saxon-Protestant”… WAPs do; immigrants who don’t themselves qualify as WAPs don’t. White, sole-Anglophone, Protestant is definitely a distinct culture; you guys tend to view anybody else as “different from the norm” without realizing what is it you’re thinking of as “the norm”. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/77 "2018-07-09T16:28:23Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Japanese aren’t Asian? Japanese aren’t people of color? The internment camps targeted whites? What’s your point? Are you deliberately misunderstanding? In WW2 the US interned people of Japanese ancestry, not Asians in general, and the Japanese interned European civilians (mainly Dutch, British and Australian). The Japanese also imprisoned the natives of the Asian countries of the countries they conquered. 'Nuff said about the treatment they got. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/78 "2018-07-09T16:30:53Z")
Given that Asia includes the Middle East, which tends to be treated as a separate category, and the Caucasus with people who look, well, Caucasian, and the substantial Russian population in Siberia aka Asian Russia, you have to be more specific when talking about “Asian.” ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/79 "2018-07-09T17:02:26Z")
I’m American-born, European descent, you know, ‘white’. My wife immigrated from Vietnam in 2001. We have a teenage daughter. I don’t see them as POC, because I don’t see them as ‘other’. I guess the feeling extends to all Asians. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477/80 "2018-07-09T17:10:14Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > “Persons of Color” is not a particularly useful phrase and it’s one I’ve never used in my life - I don’t know exactly who would be included/excluded from that group. Some ‘white’ people have a permanent beautiful bronze or deep brown skin and some ‘asians’ have extrordinarily pale skin. So obviously skin color is not detrerministic of ‘race’. Similarly with hair and eye color. Would you call a black-haired brown eyed Irish guy a person of color? No. I don’t like the term either, but it’s here and it’s used all the time so it makes sense to understand what it’s supposed to mean. That does not mean we’ll get an ironclad definition. But if all you did was focus on the literal color of people’s skins, rather than their ethnicity, you’re going to miss the mark for sure. But anyone who says “Asians are people of color” isn’t taking into account all that Asia actually is. Most Asians probably do qualify, but a good many do not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-consider-asians-to-be-people-of-color/817477.md?page=5)