Learning Spaces Are Imperfect
what i mean when i say BIPoC
I understand the term BIPoC to mean Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color: Asian, MENA, SWANA, Pacific Islander, biracial, multiracial, and all other individuals who have been systemically marginalized for not being white. Yes, I know, it’s not straightforward!
And if you identify as Hispanic and/or Latinx/a/e/o I do understand that you can belong to any of the above groups or to a mix of them as well (we're not a race, and designating us as such would erase all of our AfroLatinx, AsianLatinx, Indigenous, multiracial siblings, just to mention a couple of examples).
And you may not use any of the term above and I both respect and want to create space for that. You may prefer to say you are Brown, Black, or other name/identity marker that better identifies who you are. The way that I see it, we don’t need a clean, neat word we all agree on. We don’t need to fit into one cleat category for identification, labeling, designation purposes. These terms will continue evolving as they have had for years and we will adapt and reassess.
Also, if you are a Person of Color who has light-skin privilege, you are welcome to join the BIPoC group if you choose to, while acknowledging your light-skin privilege. I do not get to decide where you belong, but I trust that you will treat the space with the utmost respect.
Real questions I have been asked about Affinity Spaces
🌻 I haven't signed up for your space because I'm not sure which group I fit in. I'm […POC…] and white. I have white privilege. I think I'm generally perceived by white people as white but maybe seem more racially ambiguous to my friends who are mixed. Should I be in a BIPOC group or a white group?
It would be oppressive and colonial of me to tell you where you belong. While you may have light skin privilege, your experiences may be those of a POC, and you may carry the intergenerational trauma of a POC. If you decide to join a BIPoC space (and you are welcome in these spaces), I would encourage you to do so acknowledging your light skin privilege. And if you decide to join a white space, I would encourage you to consider whether you can actually relate to the experiences of a white person.
🌻 Serious question… what are the spaces for non-white and non-BIPoC to attend? I am biracial and for those of us who do not identify or get represented by censuses are left out and have to choose one of these dichotomous groups. Where we inevitably get “othered” by both.
Whether you identify as non-bipoc, non-white, white passing, light-skinned, multiracial, biracial OR if you are an individual who has been seen/labelled as white, but who does not identify as white (e.g. S.W.A.N.A.) OR if you are someone who doesn’t find themselves represented in a government census and has to choose “other”, BUT you are an individual who carries the systemic trauma of having been seen as less than because you are not white, AND you have experienced an oppressive system and marginalization because you are not white, THEN you are welcome to join my BIPoC spaces.
🌻 As a white person, what is the point of being in an all white space when I want to learn from people with lived experience? I'd appreciate a diverse group in order to learn to have hard conversation openly. I believe having leaders of multiple races could be a more valuable experience. Putting white people in a group of all white people seems like it would lead to circular logic and less learning than being in a group with more racial diversity.
While I agree that we all need to learn from people who hold lived experience, not just in terms of race, but learn from people who hold different marginalized identities, I encourage you to make sure that you are learning from people who have chosen to educate others and who will get paid for their emotional labor, and not from peers in a mixed caucus group who have not necessarily agreed to educate you.
In mixed affinity groups, peers with marginalized identities tend to carry the heavy load in terms of being inadvertently asked to educate peers with privileged identities, and this is simply not something I want to offer in my spaces.
All of my learning spaces are led by a liberation-centering psychotherapist (myself) who holds marginalized identities and lived experience. I doubt we will ever find the educator who holds all of the marginalized identities and all of the lived experiences (I am happy to be wrong though, and I would love to meet, read about, or follow such an individual). Therefore, part of decolonizing ourselves, is to actively search for all of the spaces possible, where we can learn from different people with different lived experiences, as opposed to ask for that to be served to us in one place.