Don't you think it's _describing_ this grouping, not _prescribing_ it? The truth is that racism isn't rational or know what your net worth is.
Your point about “racism” illustrates how focusing on skin color leads you astray from the outset. There is no single coherent thing called “racism” that applies to all “people of color.” Indian Americans face the ordinary prejudices people of different ethnic groups have towards each other. It’s the same prejudices Indians have towards Chinese or vice versa. Jewish people almost certainly face more prejudice in America than Indian Americans. We acknowledge that prejudice, but don’t go so far as to categorize and define them based on it.
Meanwhile, the “racism” faced by ADOS and indigenous people is different in kind. The prejudice is just the tip of an iceberg, and beneath that are the realities of being a minority population that was enslaved and brought to this country by the majority population or one that was nearly wiped out by the majority population in settling the country. The point is not that “racism” knows how rich you are. The point is that “racism” that isn’t accompanied by structural socioeconomic disparities isn’t meaningfully the same thing as “racism” that is.
And it’s not useful to any minorities to conflate these categories. Thinking in terms of “people of color” is bad for black and indigenous people. Because fixing prejudice based on skin color won’t meaningfully help them. At the same time, it’s not good for Indian Americans to falsely believe they face structural disparities when they do not.
I have never met a single European who would differentiate between a Portuguese and a German based on their skin color. But if that Portuguese person moves to the US they are suddenly a PoC and a victim of white oppression.
Also, if their parents moved to Brazil in the 1960s they somehow became a PoC? Does the actual ancestry matter or are we just assuming that everyone who is not from Europe is a PoC?
>Does the actual ancestry matter or are we just assuming that everyone who is not from Europe is a PoC?
Somehow the people who successfully colonized latin america get grouped in as marginalized because its too hard to do a color shade test or a blood quantum test.
Race isn't scientific. Even less so when you collapse the whole world into two races. White and not-white.
This is why I don’t answer to “person of color.” Indian Americans have nearly double the median white income. They live almost 8 years longer than white Americans. (Heck, Asian women make more money than white men, while Asian men live longer than white women.) Even the ones that grow up here in poverty have vastly higher income mobility as adults than whites. What clarity or insight is gained by grouping them together with other minorities suffering from generational poverty? In fact if the goal is helping people, it would make way more sense to include folks like Appalachians and Cajuns, who also suffer from generational poverty. That might give you real insight into root causes.
And when white people use the label, it’s offensive as fuck. “We are going to group you together with people you have nothing in common with economically, historically, or culturally, because you’re all ‘coloreds’ to us!”