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The main reason I’ve heard for why “person of color” is more acceptable than “colored person” is that the former focuses on their personhood first, the latter focuses on the color of their skin first. It’s somewhat similar to how it’s acceptable to say “the black man in the yellow shirt” to describe someone but not “the black in the yellow shirt.” Without the word “man” you’re reducing him to just the color of his skin

On the one hand, these minor language changes can seem extra and unnecessary, like people are just trying to find ways to say they’re better than you because they’re using the right words, but often it comes from people either studying the historical usage of words in relation to power structures or people speaking about how those words actually affect them when they’re used to describe them. In one of my college classes, the professor gave us an article to read describing why we should use the term “enslaved people” rather than “slaves” and she said she expected us to use the former in our essay. I thought it was kinda silly and unnecessary, but the author of the article explained that “enslaved people” calls attention to the fact that they’ve been forced into this. They weren’t born as slaves, as some creature whose only purpose is to serve and be owned, but as people who were then immediately enslaved. It also calls attention to the fact that other people did this to them. It focuses on the action of the people that participated in enslaving others. Since taking that class, I haven’t switched to only using “enslaved people” vs “slaves” but it made me think a lot about how the language reflects how people viewed slavery at that time, and even how some people view it today

Of course the most important thing at the end of the day is respecting those actually involved. If an old person says “colored” because that’s what they learned was polite then they’re doing their best to be polite. They shouldn’t be burned at the stake for using an older term. However if someone told them “hey I’d prefer you use person of color” to describe me instead and the old person refused because they’ve always said “colored person” then the old person is being a disrespectful asshole

Tl;dr usually these shifts in languages are about changing the focus or perspective of the original term. Some people use old terms bc that’s what they learned is respectful which is fine as long as they don’t use that excuse to disrespect people directly asking them to use other terms