Welcome to Color Outside The Lines, my new people of color safe space thread of unnecessarily verbose titling. Please see rules below:
1) We ask that only those who identify as people of color participate in this discussion. White Avocados, while valued members of this community, should remain in ‘lurk’ mode.
2) The term ‘people of color’ encompasses a broad range of experiences. We are not a monolith. Therefore, we ask that participants respect each other’s experiences during the discussion, and refrain from promoting one particular experience as being more true to our shared identity as people of color. Furthermore, we ask that participants attempt to voice their own experiences as opposed to generalizing on behalf of the community as a whole. Of course, there are some exceptions. Participants are welcome to interrogate how shared experiences like marginalization help to forge common bonds within our community, but please remain courteous towards others in doing so.
3) We will not set clearly delineated boundaries on who qualifies as a ‘person of color’. As a starting point, this thread uses the definition of ‘non-European heritage of sufficient prominence to affect one’s navigation of a society build on white normativity‘. However, we recognize that there are identities which skirt either side of the divide*. If people feel that they meaningfully experience the identity of being a person of color, then they are welcome to participate.
4) This is not a rule in the strictest sense, as we have no enforcement plans, but we ask that participants remind mindful of the following: we would like to keep this space as safe from white privilege as possible. Even people of color can help to perpetuate systems of white privilege. For example, people who enjoy passing privilege may not understand the experience of being a visible minority. What people of one ethnicity know about people of another ethnicity might operate through the proxy of whiteness. We simply ask that a conscious effort is made to acknowledge white privilege. Likewise, we ask that visible minorities consider the unique challenges of passing privilege when posting. Again, we are only asking that participants keep this in mind while commenting.
5) This is more or less covered by the other rules, but it deserves special attention: nobody on this thread is more or less a person of color than anyone else.
6) Shaming and hateful speech is unacceptable
7) Please keep potentially traumatic content safely behind spoiler tags
As this is the dry run for the thread, I welcome any suggestions on how these rules might be tweaked to best accommodate a safe and comfortable discussion space.
Optional Prompt
I’m currently in the middle of a big immigration fight, so I don’t have time to write a long post. However, I did throw together this prompt:
Seeing as this is a new space for people of color, lets talk about that word. What is a space? How is it characterized? By what things?
How would you characterize the physical elements of a cultural space? The social elements? What are your own experiences with food/music/stories etc?
What unique insights does being a person of color offer into the concept of space? Do you experience space differently than white people? What happens when white people enter into the spaces of people of color; is what they experience the same space as what you experience, or does the observer matter?
*Some examples: people of Jewish ancestry, Latino people of predominantly European ancestry, people with a very low fraction of non-white ancestry, mixed race people who are white-passing, ethnically white people who grow up in a non western environment, or adoptees who are of a different race than their parents.