[rayiner]

> BIPOC is a broad and useful term used to discuss social topics that effect that group of people

It’s broad, but not useful. “BIPOC” encompasses everyone who isn’t white. Non-whites as a group don’t have much in common. For example, when it comes to “health” or “employment.” Asians live longer than whites and have better health outcomes in many respects. Asians are wealthier and poor Asians have far more income mobility than poor whites. Asians are half as likely to be shot by police and a third as likely to be incarcerated as whites. So when people talk about “BIPOC” with respect to economic inequality or criminal justice reform, it just doesn’t make sense as applied to Asians. Even with respect to Hispanics—they live longer than whites, and have equal income mobility and incarceration rates as whites. In terms of economics and health, Hispanics have much more in common with poor white immigrants (Italians, Irish) than other other “POC.”

I get the strong sense that “BIPOC” doesn’t arise out of a practical need for a label to discuss issues common to all non-whites, but instead the political desire to draw Hispanics and Asians into civil rights issues that uniquely effect black and indigenous people. That approach is not only insensitive to the actual interests of Hispanics and Asians, but contrary to those interests because, in reality, Hispanics and Asians have much more in common economically, etc., with other groups of immigrant origin (Italians, Irish, etc.) than they do with other “people of color.”