by 
It is everywhere! “BIPOC.” You just can’t seem to get over it. We both remember that the preferred reference to those on the receiving end of racist and national oppression was “people of color.” Then suddenly we became BIPOC – a change that many urged as a specific form of enlightenment.
BIPOC, of course, stands for ‘black, indigenous and colored people’. The popularity of the term can be traced back to several factors. One is the demographic transformation of the country after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which favored relatives of US citizens and those with specific skills. As a result, larger numbers of migrants from the South have arrived on our shores and have in various ways transformed the discussions of race and color. Two: The decline – until recently – of the Black Freedom Movement, which began in the 1970s, led many leftists and progressives to understand the lingering meaning of anti-Black racism, the oppression of African Americans, and the importance of the Black. Freedom Movement in American Politics Shaping. Third, there is the political revival of the neo-fascist and racist social movement unleashed in fury by Donald Trump. A primary goal of that movement is the complete institutionalization of white minority rule — an American apartheid state — motivated by a deep-seated fear of the “Great Replacement,” that a “majority minority” country will dismantle the systemic white privilege that every political, economic, and social institution in the United States. This right-wing movement’s campaigns against immigrants, Muslims, Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, etc. — ranging from Donald Trump’s rhetorical attacks to the murders in El Paso and Buffalo — have understandably motivated oppressed communities of color to think about how they indicate commonality in their collective struggle for freedom.
However, there is another factor – one that many people like to deny or downplay. And it is an extremely sensitive issue. Under the guise of diversity, the post-1965 immigration law, immigrants of color (and their descendants) began to be moved—by whites—to leadership positions in various nonprofits, unions, and other progressive organizations, displacing non-immigrants of color. These promotions were identified as representatives of “diversity,” even though those elected had a very different – indeed qualitatively different – experience of white supremacist national oppression. Over time, this process resulted in a slow but steady increase in resentment among nonimmigrant colored peoples.
Originally, “BIPOC” arose as a means of asserting that the experiences of black and indigenous peoples could not and could not be expunged or subordinated. We agree with the intent. Still, a problem remains – or maybe a few problems. For starters, the label created a racial hierarchy akin to the old “black people and other minorities.” It basically said there was a ladder of oppression that needed to be recognized – and at the top of the ladder were the most oppressed colored peoples. Creating such hierarchies leads to an “Olympic oppression” in which different populations and movements compete. This is deeply problematic.
Second – and equally, if not more important – is the way BIPOC invisible measures entire populations, ignoring what should be understood as national oppression, a direct result of settler colonialism.
The construction of American capitalism begins with the invasion of the Western Hemisphere and the wars against the indigenous inhabitants. It is then supplemented and reformed by the introduction of forced labor – especially and ultimately racial slavery for life for Africans captured and taken to the Thirteen Colonies. As a result, all populations brought to or voluntarily brought to North America were eventually racialized, that is, placed in specific racial categories (which have nothing to do with science), but also – voluntarily or involuntarily – in the expansion of the growing settler-colonial state. So what was understood as American capitalism cannot be understood apart from its history as a racialized settler state identified by theorists such as Lerone Bennett Jr, Theodore Allen, Rodolfo Acuna and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
While capitalism is always “racial,” there were peculiarities of American capitalism rooted in this interrelationship of indigenous genocide and dispossession, racial enslavement, and settler colonialism. This settler state evolved into full-blown imperialism and colonialism as the US conquered and suppressed entire populations – and immediately racialized them. The conquest and annexation of northern Mexico is an important example, but would eventually include other populations such as Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, and Micronesians. In any case, however, the racism each population experienced — while sharing common traits with that of other populations of “color” — was also unique.
What the indigenous people experienced was not the same as the Africans, what was different from the Mexicans, etc. Yet racist and national oppression shared many features in common and was, in any case, an important method of social control over all subordinate populations.
“BIPOC” ignores this history and relegates millions of people to the “we too” column – not quite the “Other”, but an afterthought. These populations are not just offended; there is also a strategic myopia that stems from the inability to understand the nature of the American state. The American state is based on racism and national oppression. This myopia also leads to the misconception that the remedies for the specific experiences of different racialized and nationally oppressed populations should all be the same.
An example may help. While Native and African Americans were both racialized by the white supremacist/settler-colonial state, the demands of the natives cannot be met, even at the level of reform, through equal rights and anti-discrimination. They are nations whose sovereignty has been attacked and undermined. Any satisfactory solution to their experience of racism and settler colonialism must involve treaties and sovereignty. African Americans have certainly fought for equal rights, against discrimination, and for various forms of national self-determination. But the African-American struggle is not identical to that of the First Nations.
Another example: Chinese immigrants in the 19th century were often involuntarily imprisoned and brought to the US, brutally suppressed and separated by the white supremacist/settler-colonial state. Yet their experience, and that of other Asian migrants, was not the same as the African American experience, including the impact of racial slavery on family structure, connection to countries of origin, etc.
“BIPOC” recognizes none of this history, simply throwing all these groups into a stew while black people (who are never defined) and the natives float on top.
Where does that leave us? There is no satisfactory term for the victims of racist and national oppression. At various points we were all called “colored peoples”; in the sixties and seventies we called ourselves ‘people from the third world’. The first Rainbow Coalition, organized by Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, emphasized the strategic commonality of the struggles of recipients of racist and national oppression (but also included poor whites as a necessary part of a strategic alliance!). Later, the black-led electoral revival of the 1980s brought up the term “people of color,” re-emphasizing the critical need for a strategic alliance. There is no ideal term. We may offer a new acronym, eg BICPAMIC (Black, Indigenous, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Asian, Micronesian, & immigrants of colour). Or simply “the Global Majority”, which some have come to use. Or we can keep ‘colored people’. But what should guide our thinking is an effort that expresses the unity of the oppressed in our common struggle for freedom – without sacrificing the specificity of each population group.
It’s time to blow the final whistle on the Olympics of oppression.
