The term ‘person of colour’ is a self-identifying, political identification. This political identification is not based on a person’s skin colour – we come in all different shades, and people of colour are generally not of European descent. In Australia, many Indigenous peoples reject the term people of colour. Moreover people of colour politics strive to recognise how racism, white supremacy and colonialism affect the daily lives of people of colour and Indigenous peoples.
A person of colour’s politics, like everyone else’s, will develop differently and at the person’s own pace. Yet in an Australian context, there is the move to recognise the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, to recognise that racism affects various racialised groups differently, and to work strategically together because racism affects us all.
People of colour! We are sex and gender diverse, we are cisgender; our sexualities are myriad; we are religious, we are atheist and agnostic; we are radical, progressive and conservative; we are from the Global South and from the Global North; we are from all different class backgrounds; we are temporarily abled, we have disabilities; we work in a variety of professions and occupations, some of which are heavily marginalised like sex work, factory work, and dressmaking in the home. We have a voice, we are developing our voices, we sometimes keep quiet to live and breathe in peace – but one thing is for sure, – none of us need saving.
Who is a WOC?
The term ‘women of color’ was first used regularly to describe feminist women in the USA in the 1970s. Social justice movements in the 1950s and 60s such as the Civil Rights movement, Chicano/a movement, and the feminist movement had left a number of women in them feeling unsatisfied. Black feminists, Asian feminists, Native American feminists, and Chicana feminists had been struggling for decades and were heavily involved in social justice movements of the 1950s and 60s, yet found themselves marginalised. Racial justice movements were exceedingly male-dominated and sexist, while the feminist movement was dominated by middle-class white women who tended to perpetuate racism and classism.
Women of colour, sometimes calling themselves Third World women, began to work together across their communities on issues such as reproductive justice, abuse by the welfare system, urban poverty, and state violence. In an Australian context women of colour can feel marginalised from the mainstream feminist movement and have been working together to effect change.
A woman of colour is any person who identifies as a woman and who is oppressed by both racism (white supremacy, or colonialism/imperialism) and sexism (patriarchy) and if she is a trans woman by trans*phobia. Women of colour began to refer to this nexus of oppressive forces as ‘intersectionality’. The concept of intersectionality allows women of colour to discuss the unique perspectives on social inequality that different women have. Queer women, disabled women, trans women and poor/working-class women have contributed a great deal to the women of colour movement. The activism of women of colour attempts to focus productively on differences, and avoids ranking oppressive forces or trading one off against another such as racism or sexism or trans phobia. Each woman’s circumstances are considered important to forming political solutions.
Who is a person of colour who is sex and gender diverse (SGD)?
To be sex and gender diverse means that there are many genders and sexes besides the gender binary of woman and man and masculine and feminine that should be recognised. Thus SGD people of colour face racism, white supremacy and colonialism and non-recognition, invisibility and exclusions because society does not cater to the needs of SGD people of colour in its narrow two-gendered world. SGD people of colour also face violence in high numbers.
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