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Comment by vowelless | Hacker News Reader

That was a really ridiculous question to ask. I'm brown and if someone asked me about middle eastern politics during an interview or worse made some low quality comment, I would promotly get up and leave. I don't have the patience for that in a professional setting.

On a separate note

> /dev/color is a community of black software engineers who help one another reach career goals. To learn more, check out our website and follow our blog & twitter account.

Then why not call it /dev/black? I find it confusing. Does "color" imply black? I have been called a "person of color" before, due to my brown skin and middle eastern features.

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"Color" implies black, but it is also used to imply other colors sometimes. It can imply middle eastern, east asian, southeast asian, hispanic, and several other groups. However, aside from implying black, other implications are context-sensitive and as a result different authors sometimes mean very different things when they write "person of color".

It has been a long time since it exclusively referred to African Americans (I believe the term predates the us itself). For instance, the racial integrity act of 1924 specifically defines native Americans as colored; similarly, the Jim Crowe laws of the south specifically segregate whites/Caucasians from colored/non-Caucasian, though enforcement certainly centered around African Americans.

That said, the black community can use its own community voice, much like other minorities. I don't think there's any harm in the term "color" here outside of the confusion we've witnessed in this thread.

>It can imply middle eastern,

In America that's pretty stupid, considering the American census counts MENA as "white".

The census hasn't been representative of American views on race for a long time, if ever.

To be fair in terms of human anthropology, people in MENA are still considered caucasoids/caucasians.

'Person of Color' is a different way of saying 'non-white', to group together people who suffer in similar ways from not looking like the majority in Anglo-dominated countries. The thing is that 'non-white' describes that group by something that they are not, where as 'People of Color' describes them as something that they are.

Perhaps a simile - it's a bit like calling an egalitarian a 'non-white-supremacist'. Yes, the egalitarian is not a white supremicist, so it's superficially accurate, but it's not really a description of who they are.

I've encountered people who say "person of color" and mean "not white or certain flavors of asian". It can be somewhat flexible.

color is any ethnicity that's not "white". In the U.S. it's mostly used to refer to black people, but Asians, Hispanics, etc are also considered "colored"

Asians are frequently vilified as "lily-white". ;)

In the US colored is an offensive term for black people.

People of Color is a term to describe non-white minorities, popular among left wing, especially left wing minority activists.

It's not offensive, but it is archaic. It makes you sound like you grew up in the 1950s.

You don't get to define that "colored" isn't offensive. It's widely known that the historical usage is pejorative.

> It's widely known that the historical usage is pejorative.

Whoever told you this grossly misinformed you; it's just flat wrong. The term is offensive now, but the historical usage was decidedly not pejorative. The NAACP wasn't being ironic or trying to reclaim the term when they named themselves The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

> In 2008 Carla Sims, [the NAACP's] communications director, said "the term 'colored' is not derogatory, [they] chose the word 'colored' because it was the most positive description commonly used [in 1909, when the association was founded]. It's outdated and antiquated but not offensive."

It's tough to tease out antiquated from offensive in the modern day, when the average antiquated attitude towards black people _was_ pejorative per se. But it's just unambiguously incorrect to say that its historical usage was pejorative, much less that this is "widely known".

First the term was neutral. Then the word became a widely used pejorative. Nowadays the word is hardly used at all. Why did people stop using "colored"? Because it had turned into a pejorative. When did that happen? Decades ago.

That's why I said its historical usage is pejorative. This isn't controversial. The word wasn't conceived as a pejorative, but that's utterly irrelevant in this context, so there's no point in even bringing it up.

You could also point to a time in history where the N-word wasn't technically a pejorative. It originally (and etymologically) simply meant "black". Would you also argue against the claim that "it's widely known that the historical usage of the N-word is pejorative"? I sure hope not.

Try calling an African American "colored". It won't go well. For decades it was the word signs used to segregate used.

The NAACP stands for what...? That "C"...

They also have some fund for sending people to college, and that one has an "N" in it.

The United Negro College Fund and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as prominent black civil rights groups are grandfathered in. Also its usually left NAACP and not expanded partially because of that word.

I have never heard of an Asian referred to as a person of color

Ditto!

I have never heard an Asian referred to as "colored" in a derogatory manner.

However, I know several Asian Americans (both East Asian and South Asian) who frequently use the phrase "person of color" with respect to themselves.

Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819625

In some contexts “color” has referred to mainly African-descended people. In other contexts “color” gets applied more broadly to anyone with non-European ancestry. Don’t overthink the /dev/color/ name.

For some very incomplete hints at some of the history, see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color

Oh come on. Don't link to that. /dev/color clearly refers to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color

The question was “why not call it /dev/black?”; the wikipedia article linked clarifies that “color” has in some contexts in US culture historically referred to African-descended people. I edited my comment to add your link as well though.

It's kind of weird to say "Don't link to that offensive term, link to this offensive term instead". Just strikes me as oddly politically correct but not really at the same time.

POC is (at least for now) the correct (unoffensive) term. Of course don't use POC if individuals object to it, but it's nowadays the default descriptor and the safest choice.

It's profoundly silly that the same words are ok if used in a passive formation, but offensive in the active formation.

"Color" means nonwhite. "People of color" means blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Asians, the entire aggregate of discriminated-against nonEuropeans. Not to be confused with "colored people" which is a deprecated term for blacks only, now considered archaic and racist.

I see "person of color" as a term of alliance against a white supremacist culture. There are many particular difference but the idea is that there are also some commonalities that make alliance and shared analysis valuable.

It's just a name. Like "World Series" or "Anti-Defamation League".

Because of the climate we live in.

You can get away with being racist as long as you're not white.

The sob story in this piece is hardly moving - as someone that's been working in Silicon Valley for the past 8 years, it is an extremely open place and have never seen anything approaching this type of behavior. The truth of the matter is that for any given open requisition for a software engineeer, less than 1 black applicant will apply. That is not our problem to solve (directly, at least) and it is most definitely not something for whites to feel guilty about.

The truth is, in everyone's struggle to be "remarkable" they latch on to what they can and in this case it's to be "that guy" that cries racism.

This type of hyperbole is often encouraged with an attitude along the lines of "the ends justify the means." I took a few classes at a community college in Oakland and it was unbearable.

What is preached is not equality, is not kindness unto others, what is preached is black superiority and an attitude of "white people took what's ours."

A shame really, since all it did was bring race to the forefront for me when before this experience I was more or less happily ignorant treating everyone I came across the same way.

"The sob story in this piece is hardly moving - as someone that's been working in Silicon Valley for the past 8 years, it is an extremely open place and have never seen anything approaching this type of behavior."

In light of the first part of this statement I wonder if maybe you just didn't notice.

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