The terminology used to collectively describe nonwhite people in majority white countries has generated significant debate on social media.

There is currently no consensus surrounding the use of collective racial terms such as nonwhite, people of colour (PoC), Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPoC), racialized, Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME — a common collective term used in Britain), and global majority — a collective racial term currently being adopted by some academics, non-governmental organizations and racial equity advocates in the UK and North America.

At the same time, there is a social and professional need to understand how preferred terms are used and evolve over time, to acknowledge racial differences in large multiracial societies and avoid stigmatizing language.

Research and analysis on the use of collective racial terminology in majority white countries is sparse, one exception being the work of Peter Aspinall, a professor at the University of Kent who conducted a 2020 review of the use of specific and collective racial terms in Britain.

Drawing on Aspinall and other sources, and with the intent of generating further discussion, what follows is a brief, non-exhaustive review of five common collective racial terms used in Canada, the United States and Britain.

Nonwhite

Widely used for its brevity and convenience, the collective racial term nonwhite is viewed by some as archaic, and is criticized for centering and identifying something that it is lacking in a minority — whiteness — from the majority in predominantly white countries.

“‘Non-white’ defines the ethnic minority population in negative terms—by what it is not—and as a residual population. Further, it sets ‘white’ as the standard, making it openly ethnocentric, and reinforces ‘the myth of homogeneity’ of the white group, excluding from the term white minority ethnic groups.”

Others believe the term “nonwhite” is useful because it forces white people beyond their comfort zone to view themselves in racial terms. It is also analytically helpful when comparing data on racial equity gaps in majority white countries, where there are significant wage, wealth and representation disparities between people who are white and people who are not white.

For the record, I purposefully use nonwhite when speaking to racial wage and representation gaps, precisely because of the white and nonwhite racial dynamic. Incidentally, I used the term ‘nonwhite’ in a 2022 Twitter post, and was politely shamed for doing so…more on that later.

PoC and BIPoC

The term people of colour is preferred by some racial justice advocates because it is a politically useful term that does not centre whiteness, and provides a unifying frame of reference with respect to racial inequity. The term is partly criticized for echoing the archaic term “colored,” and for having painful connections to slavery and segregation in the American South.

But PoC is primarily criticized for erasing key differences — for example the unique social and economic impacts of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism — between racial groups.

The term Black, Indigenous, and people of colour is similarly criticized as being a simplistic extension of PoC.

In a critique of the term BIPoC, Toronto Star journalist Shree Paradkar states:

“It’s true that some people are simply anxious to keep up with the terminology to signal support for anti-racism, but when they do so without paying attention to the nuance of those terms, and flatten our identities and conflate the unique struggles of different groups, they replicate the problem the terminology is trying to eradicate. I am done. Bye, bye BIPOC.”

Aspinall concurs with these assessments, noting that “these terms suggest that minority ethnic groups are a unified group characterized by homogeneity.”

Racialized

The term racialized has gained traction in Canada, especially in public service circles, where it is embraced for representing people who have gone through racialization “the processes by which societies construct races as real, different and unequal in ways that matter to economic, political, and social life.” For some, the term resonates because it describes their experiences with race and racism in majority white countries.

However, the term has also been critiqued for excluding white people as racialized, and for normalizing whiteness through the conflation of all non-white groups.

“it is through the conferring of privilege and disadvantage based on race which determines if Canada — as a nation and state — is racist. Therefore, “racialized” people are not — and cannot be — exclusively non-white people because they experience racial discrimination; whiteness and the privileges afforded to it are also racialized. Limiting “racialized” exclusively to the experiences of non-white communities ignores redressing the material disadvantages non-white communities experience due to their racialization.”

Similar to PoC and BIPoC, the term racialized is critiqued for flattening identities and “moving people away from who they are.”

BAME

In the early 2000s, the term Black, Asian, and minority ethnic was introduced as a collective racial term in the UK. It was seldom used until 2015, but ballooned in use in 2020 as a shorthand to describe Black and Asian groups at greater risk to COVID-19. Aspinall’s analysis of the UK Hansard (proceedings of the UK Parliament) shows that BAME was first used in 2004, and appears 333 times between 2004 and 2020. Usage of the term was sporadic until 2015, with BAME peaking at 88 mentions in Hansard in 2020.

Similar to collective racial terms used in Canada and the US, BAME is criticized for erasing important social and economic differences between racial groups. In the UK, BAME has also been criticized for excluding white ethnic minorities and for being confusing to many; for example, user testing and research on the use of terminology suggests that the term BAME scores low indices of recognition in Britain.

Global Majority

Global majority is a collective racial term that describes people of African, Asian, Latin American, and Arab descent who together comprise the vast majority of the world’s population (approximately 80%).

The term reflects the statistical fact that whiteness is not the global norm, “has the power to disrupt and reframe conversations on race… and moves racialized people from the centre to the margins” It also reflects demographic change in majority white countries; for example, statistics suggest that in 2036, Canada will be “as brown as it is white.”

The term ‘global majority’ was coined between 2003 and 2011 as a response to confusing pan-ethnic identities that construct “the identity of racialized people in relation to the dominant white population.” Since 2020, the term has gained prominence in some academic circles , but has not been widely adopted by large public or private institutions, or the public at large.

Global majority may accurately describe global demographics, including demographic changes in majority white countries. However, a key limitation of the term is that it does not accurately reflect white and nonwhite power dynamics in these countries, nor the social and economic reality for nonwhite people, who experience acute wealth and representation gaps relative to their white counterparts.

Racial Terminology as a Form of Representation

In his review of collective and specific racial terms, Aspinall employs a theoretical framework that conceives of racial terminology as a form of representation. The central premise is that racial terminology evolves over time owing to demographic and social change.

“Like identity itself, ethnic/racial terminology changes over time in response to shifting preferences in the wider society, the changing composition of the population, and changing patterns of racialization.”

Changes in the use of collective racial terminology are reflected in interactions between social categorizers —social influencers, large institutions and public agencies, and group identifiers — those whom the label describes.

A key issue with collective racial terminology is that it can be coopted and normalized by large, influential public and private institutions or social media influencers. In addition, the use of collective racial terms embody “pan-ethnicities” not specific to particular ethnic groups, which may produce social distance between groups where the collective term or identity does not relate to lived experience.

“The difficulty with this collective terminology is that it tends to be developed—and subsequently popularized and sustained—by observers, such as government bodies, public and statutory agencies, and the media. It is not the outcome of a discursive and interactive process involving its developers and the people the terminology describes.”

A 2022 Twitter exchange between myself and a University of Toronto professor illustrates nicely the power dynamic between social categorizers and group identifiers (emphasis added below).

Professor: Because someone is Black, Brown, from global majority communities does not mean they are automatically antiracist. As the late Steve Biko said “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”.

KS: During my time in the Cdn public service, the number of oppressed minds who took down nonwhite public servants for their white masters was stunning. It’s an environment of highly internalized racism, which white execs actively foster. It’s how they roll.

Professor:: Please do not refer to Black, Brown, Indigenous, people from global majority communities as non-white. Time to change that language.

KS: It’s not the best collective term & I understand that. I use “nonwhite” because it aptly describes the dynamic behind racial wage & representation gaps in majority white countries. Time to change #RacialEquity outcomes for the better.

I have approximately 150 followers on Twitter. The University of Toronto professor has over 8000 followers.

That exchange constitutes an excellent example of the power that social categorizer influencers from large public agencies can exercise over less powerful group identifiers with respect to the adoption and use of collective racial terms.

It’s also a form of social media shaming, polite as the tweet might seem. Just saying.

No Consensus on Collective Racial Terms

Based on research to date, it’s clear that consensus on collective terms isn’t on the horizon anytime soon. Aspinall concludes his review by advising “When there is a need to identify the constituent groups in collective terms, the use of accurate description to delineate these population groups is recommended.”

A tension persists in this advice owing to the analytical disconnect between the use of collective and specific terms, however the concept of “walking and chewing gum at the same time” may apply. For example, racial equity advocates can use and further the discussion of collective racial terminology for building inter-group allyship and enhancing racial outcomes, and at the same time, use specific racial terms when addressing unique forms of racism and their differential social and economic impacts.

My personal view is that collective terms should never be used in place of specificity; if I’m addressing an issue related to anti-Black, anti-Muslim, or anti-Indigenous racism, I’ll name it as such.

And given that there’s no consensus on collective racial terms, perhaps we can let nonwhite people in (still) majority white countries employ the terminology that they are most comfortable using, without being shamed.

Citations avlialble on request.