What Does it Stand For?
Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Colour
It is also styled as IBPoC. Both are correct and are equal in every way except one… the ease of saying it out loud.
Where Did it Come From?
BIPoC, like a lot of things, emerged on social media.
In 2013 folks were looking for a more accessible term for racialized peoples. Terms like ‘racial minorities’, ‘visible minorities’, ‘people of colour’, or ‘non-white’ had mostly fallen out of favour because they implied that race is biological. The term racialized peoples recognizes that race is a social construct but being assigned race can have very real impacts on an individual. Is the term an improvement on its predecessors, yes. Is it a bit unwieldly for a social media generation, also yes.
So… BIPoC
How is it Used Properly?
First: Individuals are not BIPoC
Unless they specifically choose to identify as BIPoC. Normalize asking folks if you’re not sure, like asking for someone’s pronouns, it’s just respectful.
BIPoC is an umbrella terms for racialized peoples, which brings us to
Second: Different communities or individuals who fall under this umbrella term have different identities and experiences based on their culture, politics, faith, region they grew up in, and an unlimited number of other factors. Grouping them all together under this term doesn’t mean these individual perspectives become any less important.
Third: BIPoC is an imperfect term. Like many things created to fit within limited character text spaces it lacks nuance. To maintain the spirit of inclusiveness of this term it’s important to be mindful of capitalization, where you place the ‘and’, and most critically, that ‘Peoples’ is pluralized.
To find the nuance, BIPoC Outside will be speaking with Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Colour, and BIPoC communities to explore BIPoC experiences doing awesome things outdoors.
Lesson over, lets get to the fun stuff!