[ACC24026]

I’m not sure who was the exact person was who started saying ‘minority’, but it began as a practice in the social sciences back in the 1940s. It was intended as a less abusive replacement term for terms used for anyone not white, phrases like ‘the darker (or lower) races’, ‘our little brown brothers’, ‘savage peoples’, etc. But the fact remains that it IS an uncomfortable label forced upon us by outsiders (just like Hispanic and Native American, by the way). The term was deliberately designed to emphasize the perceived ‘helplessness’ or ‘weakness’ of nonwhites as a way of appealing to humanitarian motives. Pity is hardly the best of reasons to base a relationship on, though. So most social scientists now are just as uncomfortable with the term minority for those reasons as well as the same reason you are. This is why ‘people of color’ is being so widely used.

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Name : ACC24026, Race : Mexican and American Indian, City : W Lafayette, State : IN, Country : United States, Occupation : Grad student in history, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

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