This is a question that gets asked a lot when we encounter someone unfamiliar with race politics -- which is a lot of people. This article comes out of discussions we've had on the subject and the questions that commonly get asked when we tell people about the network.
What are the origins of the term?The original use of the term probably comes from French colonies in the West Indies, where
gens de couleur libre (free people of colour) were designated a separate class from enslaved Africans, until the abolition of slavery. Martinician anti-racist theorist Frantz Fanon used it in his work in the 1940s and 50s, which probably influenced racial justice activists in the USA in the 1970s and 80s, who began to take it up.
At this time, the women's movement had been in full swing for a number of years, and a number of prominent critiques of feminism began to emerge. Indigenous women, women from the Third World, immigrant women, and women from racially subordinated groups criticised mainstream feminism's centring of white, middle-class women's experiences and strategies for liberation. In order to emphasise their commonality with one another, sometimes trying to forge a separate political identity to feminism, women started using the label 'women of color' to refer to alternative types of feminism.
Who does it refer to?Most of the work done by self-identifying women of colour comes from the USA. In that context, the groups of people designated historically as not-white fall into the category of 'people of color': Native Americans, African Americans, Latin@s, and Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.
However, more recently, in the context of the 'war on terror' there has been work by Arab/Middle Eastern American women on developing political alliances with other women of color networks, and in exploring the racial oppression of Arab Americans. In this context, a number of women of color organisations have worked on developing solidarity with Palestinian women, and on critiquing the gender politics of the war on terror.
The contestation of the term highlights how socially constructed racial groupings are. However, the process of contestation has sharpened the politics of anti-racist campaigning by demanding a more political and less essentialist definition of race. Using the term 'people of color' tends to be a political act, which defines the group in question as being subjected to particular kinds of subordination. Colonial dispossession, persecution, exotification, (super)exploitation, cultural marginalisation, and discrimination are all processes that racially marginalised people have in common, and using the term 'people of colour' emphasises that commonality, and also the ways that different communities can work together to resist subjugation.
Despite the US-centric origins of the term 'women of colo(u)r', it is a marginalised term even in the USA. We have found that the political motivations behind using the term support our goals of inclusion without trying to homogenise, and emphasising commonality-in-difference.
Why do we prefer the term "women of colour" as opposed to other terms, e.g. "non-white," "culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD)" and "non-English speaking background (NESB)"?Most of the terms that refer to racially other-than-white people have negative connotations. Terms like "coloured," "mulatto," and "half-caste" aren't used very often any more, but the stigmatisation that inheres to those labels lives on.
The terms 'non-white' and 'minority' define people negatively -- they define people by what they are not. This implicitly sets up whiteness as normal and normative (setting the norms by which others are judged). An anti-racist analysis needs to break through that ideological privileging, so using a different label can turn the analysis around to question why whiteness is considered normative.
The use of the term 'minority' is also misleading. Minorities differ in different contexts, and globally, it is white people who are a minority of the global human population. Referring to a group of people as a minority tends to represent them as part of a homogenous group, downplaying internal differences.
'CALD' and 'NESB' -- terms used in the Australian context -- are bureaucratic labels that tend to confuse the issue of what racial subordination is. These labels refer to immigrant groups, and tend to imply that immigrant communities are essentially the same and can be dealt with in the same way. They also imply that it is the
differentness of a group of people that leads to them being marginalised. These terms also tend to set apart issues of racism towards immigrants and towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by creating artificial boundaries around the issues.
'NESB' implies that the major point of difference with the mainstream is linguistic difference -- of not speaking English. However, this is a spurious basis for distinguishing people. Many colonised and formerly-colonised countries -- particularly in Africa and South Asia -- teach English, because of British imperialism. What's more, people who are white but come from Europe can claim to be subordinated on the basis of being from a "non-English-speaking background" even if they are upper-middle-class and come from a country that formerly had an empire (in fact, this has happened, very recently, at one student organisation where a white man justified taking an anti-racism position because of his 'non-English-speaking background').
'CALD' also implies that it is the characteristics of marginalised groups -- in this case "cultural" and linguistic characteristics -- which leads to their marginalisation. This tends to depoliticise the issue of racial subordination by focusing on the way that racially subordinated groups are "different" from the dominant culture, rather than on the ways that they're subjected to injustice.
Terms that are imposed by governments, bureaucracies, and the ruling elite tend to stigmatise racially oppressed people.
What about the term Black?Black as a label has had a long history of being politicised in a similar way to 'people of colour'. Originally used by those of the African diaspora to explore the meanings of the experience of racial subordination, and resistance to domination, anti-racist activists in the UK and Africa have also used the term to refer to a broad category of people subjected to processes of colonisation, mostly African and South Asian peoples.
In the Australian context, Blackness tends to also be associated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, with Indigenous peoples and peoples of the Pacific Islands, as well as with people of African descent.
There are women who are involved in the network who identify as Black, although not all do. Identifying as Black and as a woman of colour is not mutually exclusive.
What do you mean by 'white'?'White' as a racial category is the flip-side of 'people of colour'. Where people of colour are racially subjugated, white people are racially privileged. The designation of people as 'white' only began to occur within the hierarchical relations of European imperialism. While decolonisation may have occurred, and systems of apartheid have been removed from legal systems, the social inequalities and oppressive processes between racialised groups still exist today. White people as a group still benefit from the injustices that people of colour face, and the benefits of racism transfer over generations.
Different contexts have different definitions of whiteness, both legally and socially. The definition of whiteness can also change over time. For example, there was a time in Australia when Italian and Greek immigrants were not considered white, and were subjected to discrimination, but over time that has changed. Yet within Italy and Greece, other groups of people are considered non-white. This is because whiteness is socially constructed; but that doesn't mean it's non-existent, imaginary, or that it can be wiped away by pretending it doesn't exist.
In the Australian context, white tends to mean people with predominantly European ancestors. However, because of many mixed-race relationships, there are light-skinned people of colour who 'pass' as white, but experience many of the oppressive conditions of darker-skinned people of colour. This is especially true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, many of whose ancestors were subjected to systematic rape by white colonisers, and who were removed from their families by government policy in order to assimilate them into mainstream society. So although pale skin does bring privileges with it, it isn't always an indicator of whiteness.
Okay, so you've talked a lot about race, what about gender? Why a group for women of colour in particular?The Women of Colour Network was started by activists within student organisations' women's departments, through the Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA). The network was born from the Women of Colour Caucus that was convened at the 2007 NOWSA conference. Often, in student organisations, women's departments are better funded and better established than anti-racism departments. In many student organisations, anti-racism departments don't exist at all. The Women of Colour Network is convened by feminist activists who are interested in anti-racism, but have found very little scope for being active around these issues within student organisations. So partially, it is the legacy of its origins.
We are interested in bringing new perspectives to student feminisms by emphasising race without de-emphasising gender. Too often we are put in the position of choosing between feminism and anti-racism, when our very being demands that we support both. The network is a space where we can explore the intersections of gender and race to inform our activism with a liberating perspective. We recognise that Western feminism has been particularly white-centric, and that an alternative needs to be presented.
In this we draw on concepts from women of colour politics around the world, such as reproductive justice, to broaden the scope of feminist activism. Reproductive justice is a concept that women of color organisations in the USA devised to refer to women's reproductive health issues beyond the legal right to abortion. Issues such as sterilisation abuse, welfare, and the right to keep access to children are emphasised in a reproductive justice approach, since women of colour have been disproportionately subjected to these forms of injustice. Whereas mainstream white feminism universalises about the pressure to reproduce that women face, a women of colour perspective recognises that women of colour have been targeted on the basis of both gender and race as reproducers of their race, and that racism targets women's reproductive capacities in specific ways.
We recognise that Western feminism has been exclusive in other ways in its definition of 'woman' as a category, and the issues it concerns itself with. Women with disabilities, poor women, queer women, trans women, women in prison, and many other marginalised women have been excluded from the feminist category of 'woman'. We are mindful that in using the term 'woman' we don't refer to an exclusive or homogenous category, but a gendered form of difference that varies over times, spaces, cultures, bodies, and sexualities.
Why use the term 'women of colour'?Unlike labels which have been applied to us to limit our understanding, and our action, we find the term 'women of colour' enables us to think outside the dominant understandings of race, and to develop our own political consciousness and practices in liberating ways. In that way, the term "person of colour" as a racial identity is similar to the term "queer" as a sexual identity. It is a term which has been reclaimed to express a political point about the nature of race, and to identify our relative positions in the hierarchy of race.
By not specifying a particular racial or ethnic category as defining the framework of racial subordination, we open the term up to interpretation based on the needs of the people using it. This causes a creative tension, which means we are constantly called on to respect the differences between us whenever we speak about the things we have in common. It also allows us to build alliances between non-Aboriginal feminists of colour and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples on the basis of broader and more flexible understandings of racism and colonialism, and to tap into the commonalities we share in order to resist racism.
Am I a woman of colour?Generally we emphasise self-identification as being part of a racially subordinated community, and as being a woman, as being the main criteria for being considered a woman of colour. Each person must consider this for themselves, and decide about the politics of using these labels. This means that membership of the network is largely a matter of self-selection.
We would like to emphasise that trans women are welcome to join the network.
Who isn't a woman of colour?In the Australian context, a number of people who consider themselves, and are considered by others, as white are often surprised to find an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander ancestor, or a person of colour ancestor. Generally, we feel that people who receive most of the privileges of whiteness are not people of colour.
Men of colour are welcome to contribute in other ways than being part of the network, as are white women and men. However, joining the network is only open to women of colour.
Hopefully that clarifies some things. If you'd like any more information, please email
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