By Jerry Kolber
“So, how is your colored people’s group going?”
I nearly choked on my giggles. The question, asked in all earnestness and good intentions, came from a friend at IDP who didn’t grow up in the US, and was therefore less familiar with the subtleties of racial and ethnic terms than I, who have lived here all my life and watched them shift around me.
“People of color group?” I corrected her, gently I hope. “It’s going wonderfully. Thanks for asking.”
Historically, “people of color” was a legal term that referred to all people of African, Native American, or mixed-race heritage who had rights under the law, as in “free people of color.” I remember reading... More...
