'People of Color' Is a Marxist Phrase. Let's Stop Using It.
Like
most ideologies, social justice has a lexicon of its own, complete with
both formal terms emanating from the academic world and terms emerging
colloquially from everyday use by its adherents. The phrase "people" or
"person of color" is one of these terms. "People of color" is the
social justice term used to describe non-white people.
On the surface, the phrase is a pleasant-sounding and politically correct way to describe non-white people. However, when digging deeper, it is clear that the phrase is Marxist in origin and meaning.
Marx wanted to abolish many social institutions — the family unit, private property, and the past — in order to create a completely classless, equitable society. Individuality was among the other features of the human condition Marx sought to eliminate. He believed that "the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom!" So long as there is individuality, there is inequality. Individuality means there is difference and variation among people, and anything that enables human beings to differentiate themselves from others is a form of inequality that necessitates elimination.
Marx understood the totality of the human condition as "the history of class struggles." Marx interpreted this struggle as one between the proletariat and the bourgeois. Marx articulated this struggle as a bifurcation. A bifurcation is a logical fallacy where things are broken down as either one option or the other, without entertaining the possibility of both options, neither, or an alternative. For example, saying people are either Trump- or Hillary-supporters without entertaining the possibility that someone can like both of them, like neither of them, or support an alternate candidate.
By applying both components of Marxism addressed here to the phrase "person of color," the Marxist nature of the seemingly innocent and polite phrase becomes stark and unavoidable. A specific example illustrating this point is something Linda Sarsour, a Muslim-American social justice advocate, once said: "When I wasn't wearing hijab, I was just some ordinary white girl from New York City. ... [W]earing hijab made you know that I was Muslim."
Essentially, the thrust of her point is that she is a white person otherwise, but when she puts on her hijab, she is suddenly a person of color. Being a person of color has nothing to do with skin color. A person of color is merely a euphemism to mean someone who is not a white, male, able-bodied heterosexual. Should it be convenient, a woman is a person of color. Should it be convenient, a homosexual, a Muslim, or a transgender person is also a person of color.
Anyone who is not a white person is a person of color. This concept sets up the bifurcation of white people versus people of color. This dichotomy easily abolishes individuality by lumping everyone together, both white and nonwhite. This enables the Marxists — who originally would have attempted this with class struggle — to articulate the world in terms of racial inequality by making everyone either a person of color, who is victimized by a white society, or a white person, who either victimizes or at the very least benefits from a system that oppresses people of color.
Should the proponent of the phrase not bifurcate the human condition, we are left with individuals. If you are an individual, you cannot be lumped together with everyone else as an oppressor. If we are understood as individuals, no one in the present can be held accountable for past transgressions and moral turpitude against traditionally marginalized groups of people from the past.
For example, if a white male is treated as an individual, then he is not merely an amalgamation of all the white people who have committed wrongdoings. This white male is therefore not culpable for the transgressions of others, therefore no retributive actions taken against him are legitimate. Additionally, no policies elevating a person of color in the name of restorative social justice from transgressions caused by other white people are reasonable, either.
The social justice warrior is out to rectify discrepancies of the past to create a more balanced and equitable world in the present and future. The intersectionalist ideology believes in the natural goodness of man, corrupted by society. Society corrupts us because it is an arbitrary social construct that is inequitably structured to favor white, male, able-bodied heterosexuals. These people are successful in life because society is structured to favor them, and they use this societal inequity to step on the heads and shoulders of people of color. Should we take away the advantages with which society inequitably endows white men, we can have the equitable society the Marxists and the modern social justice warriors desire.
Marx pontificated as follows in Das Kapital: "In order to establish equality, we must first establish inequality." The phrase "people of color" uses a bifurcation to eliminate individuality, establishing inequality. Now, having established inequality, the social-justice Marxist can attempt to eliminate forms of inequality by taking away from the white male the societal privileges he unfairly receives.
What this ultimately amounts to is weaponized envy. When it is not about someone rising to the level of another person, but about the lower person yanking the higher person down; when it is not about someone having what another person has, but about the other person not having it altogether; and when it is not about someone winning, but about another losing, we have the epitome of envy.
The phrase "people of color" strategically lumps together all people as either white or nonwhite. Using the phrase makes it is easier to take from white men and easier to rationalize preferential treatment for others. The phrase is weaponized envy pleasantly disguised as equality. The phrase is Marxist. It necessitates eradication from our schools, vocabularies, and minds.
On the surface, the phrase is a pleasant-sounding and politically correct way to describe non-white people. However, when digging deeper, it is clear that the phrase is Marxist in origin and meaning.
Marx wanted to abolish many social institutions — the family unit, private property, and the past — in order to create a completely classless, equitable society. Individuality was among the other features of the human condition Marx sought to eliminate. He believed that "the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom!" So long as there is individuality, there is inequality. Individuality means there is difference and variation among people, and anything that enables human beings to differentiate themselves from others is a form of inequality that necessitates elimination.
Marx understood the totality of the human condition as "the history of class struggles." Marx interpreted this struggle as one between the proletariat and the bourgeois. Marx articulated this struggle as a bifurcation. A bifurcation is a logical fallacy where things are broken down as either one option or the other, without entertaining the possibility of both options, neither, or an alternative. For example, saying people are either Trump- or Hillary-supporters without entertaining the possibility that someone can like both of them, like neither of them, or support an alternate candidate.
By applying both components of Marxism addressed here to the phrase "person of color," the Marxist nature of the seemingly innocent and polite phrase becomes stark and unavoidable. A specific example illustrating this point is something Linda Sarsour, a Muslim-American social justice advocate, once said: "When I wasn't wearing hijab, I was just some ordinary white girl from New York City. ... [W]earing hijab made you know that I was Muslim."
Essentially, the thrust of her point is that she is a white person otherwise, but when she puts on her hijab, she is suddenly a person of color. Being a person of color has nothing to do with skin color. A person of color is merely a euphemism to mean someone who is not a white, male, able-bodied heterosexual. Should it be convenient, a woman is a person of color. Should it be convenient, a homosexual, a Muslim, or a transgender person is also a person of color.
Anyone who is not a white person is a person of color. This concept sets up the bifurcation of white people versus people of color. This dichotomy easily abolishes individuality by lumping everyone together, both white and nonwhite. This enables the Marxists — who originally would have attempted this with class struggle — to articulate the world in terms of racial inequality by making everyone either a person of color, who is victimized by a white society, or a white person, who either victimizes or at the very least benefits from a system that oppresses people of color.
Should the proponent of the phrase not bifurcate the human condition, we are left with individuals. If you are an individual, you cannot be lumped together with everyone else as an oppressor. If we are understood as individuals, no one in the present can be held accountable for past transgressions and moral turpitude against traditionally marginalized groups of people from the past.
For example, if a white male is treated as an individual, then he is not merely an amalgamation of all the white people who have committed wrongdoings. This white male is therefore not culpable for the transgressions of others, therefore no retributive actions taken against him are legitimate. Additionally, no policies elevating a person of color in the name of restorative social justice from transgressions caused by other white people are reasonable, either.
The social justice warrior is out to rectify discrepancies of the past to create a more balanced and equitable world in the present and future. The intersectionalist ideology believes in the natural goodness of man, corrupted by society. Society corrupts us because it is an arbitrary social construct that is inequitably structured to favor white, male, able-bodied heterosexuals. These people are successful in life because society is structured to favor them, and they use this societal inequity to step on the heads and shoulders of people of color. Should we take away the advantages with which society inequitably endows white men, we can have the equitable society the Marxists and the modern social justice warriors desire.
Marx pontificated as follows in Das Kapital: "In order to establish equality, we must first establish inequality." The phrase "people of color" uses a bifurcation to eliminate individuality, establishing inequality. Now, having established inequality, the social-justice Marxist can attempt to eliminate forms of inequality by taking away from the white male the societal privileges he unfairly receives.
What this ultimately amounts to is weaponized envy. When it is not about someone rising to the level of another person, but about the lower person yanking the higher person down; when it is not about someone having what another person has, but about the other person not having it altogether; and when it is not about someone winning, but about another losing, we have the epitome of envy.
The phrase "people of color" strategically lumps together all people as either white or nonwhite. Using the phrase makes it is easier to take from white men and easier to rationalize preferential treatment for others. The phrase is weaponized envy pleasantly disguised as equality. The phrase is Marxist. It necessitates eradication from our schools, vocabularies, and minds.
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