I am an NBPOC

Non-black people of color exist and we need to acknowledge them in POC (people of color) circles.

We, humans, come in all shapes and colors, we need to stop creating superficial barriers between us

I am not white. The best way to describe me would be “NBPOC” (non black person of color). However, when someone like myself tries to join social groups online for “POC”, I often see NBPOC (olives, Arabs, Hispanic, Asian, etc.) struggles be minimized and/or flat out encouraged to leave the groups and “make their own group”. Despite how these groups are open to global members.

The “not white” crowd has struggled throughout history, across the globe. To me, it’s flat out baffling to see us create frankly completely human and superficial barriers between each other for the sake of barriers. If a group is labeled “POC”, we would expect that it’s actually open to all non-white people. We also get into the difficult ideas of white-passing (where at first glance a stranger might think you are “white” or “a person who tans really easy and therefore not considered a minority”) as well as beauty standards with “light skin vs dark skin” (where depending on where you are in the world, light skin is glamorized and in other places, dark skin is glamorized).

If you want to make a group-specific to those with African diaspora, that is totally fine, just please don’t label it “POC”. Because it sure as Hell is frustrating trying to navigate through online social media spaces labeled “POC” as a NBPOC when the “POC Group” actually just means “For black people only” (again, which is totally fine, just please label it as such so us NBPOC don’t feel ostracized within said community).