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Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

I looked it up - according to the NYT 'black, indigenous people of color'. Based on this shouldn't the correct wording for 'black lives matter' be 'BIPOC lives matter'? Surely people of color and indigenous people are taking offense at this?

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Black Lives Matter was a movement started specifically about the policing of black people and black communities. I haven’t read about any people groups taking offense at this terminology except for white people who cannot come to accept that, for instance, “save the rainforest” does not mean you don’t care about deforestation generally but rather is meant to draw attention to a very real issue even if you happen to care about the longevity of all forests.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that non-black people of color are disproportionately experiencing police violence at the same rates?

I saw someone else here arguing with statistics and apparently police kill a lot of white folks, too, and the rates aren't much different than blacks. What does happen, though, is blacks are disproportionately targeted by police in many other non-lethal-but-still-terrible ways.

It also somehow places black and indigenous people as not "people of color"(I assume they aren't counting white indigenous people like the Sami).

This is an incorrect reading of the term. BIPOC is US-specific. You'd have to look at teachings from Sami activists to see the most useful framing for indigenous erasure in Scandinavia. Also, it does not place black and indigenous people as not POC, the aim is "undoing Native invisibility, anti-Blackness, dismantling white supremacy and advancing racial justice."[0]. It instead centers the two groups who have been the most marginalized in the US.

[0] https://www.thebipocproject.org/

Limiting yourself to two seems too stringent when it is just a letter in an acronym. There has been huge anti Chinese and anti Japanese sentiment in the US. I may start thebijpoccproject.com to address the invisibility of Asians in the mind of US anti racism advocates.

I'm trying to be as inclusive as I can be, and I have been told that BIPOC is an inclusive term. If there is a better term here, please let me know so I can use it. I was discussing American society in particular, so the Sami might not be relevant.

Either way, it would be nice if we could look at my comment as doing what I can to not be offensive, instead of nitpicking an argument that is clearly trying. Instead of tearing it down, do you have another suggestion?

I'm curious, would you say it includes Arabs, Persians and Jews?

I'm not saying I have a problem with you using the term, I'm saying I don't understand why it isn't just "PoCs" any more and what was lacking with that.

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