[21] The phrase was used as a method of communicating solidarity between non-white women that was, according to Loretta Ross, not based on "biological destiny" but instead a political act of naming themselves.
Joseph Tuman of San Francisco State University argues that the term "people of color" is attractive because it unites disparate racial and ethnic groups into a larger collective in solidarity with one another.
[32] People of color also encompasses various heterogeneous groups which have little in common,[34] with some arguing that American culture as a whole does not deliberate on economic inequality or issues of class.
[34] Political scientist Angelo Falcón argues that the use of broad terms like "person of color" is offensive because it aggregates diverse communities and projects "a false unity" that "obscure[s] the needs of Latinos and Asians".
[35][36] Citing the sensitivity of the issue, Falcón suggested that there should be "a national summit of Black, Latino and Asian community leaders" to discuss "how can the problem of the so-called 'black/white binary' be tackled in the way it respects the diversity it ignores and helps build the broader constituency for racial social justice that is needed in the country" and to "open the way for a perhaps much-needed resetting of relations between these historically-discriminated against communities that can lead to a more useful etymology of this relationship".
[40] By June 2020, it was, according to Sandra Garcia of The New York Times, "ubiquitous in some corners of Twitter and Instagram",[41] as racial justice awareness grew in the United States in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
The term aims to emphasize the historic oppression of black and indigenous people, which is argued to be superlative and distinctive in U.S. history at the collective level.
[43] The term BIPOC does not appear to have originated in the Black and Indigenous American communities, as it had been adopted much more widely among white Democrats than among people of color in a 2021 national poll.
[46][47] The acronym's purposeful and definitional assertion that the historical and present-day suffering experienced by Black and Indigenous people is more significant in kind or degree than that of other non-white groups has been described as casting communities of color in an oppression Olympics that obscures intersectional characteristics, similarities, and opportunities for solidarity in the struggle against racism.
[49] Noting that "Black and Indigenous people are not at the center of every contemporary racial issue",[50] other commentators have found it problematic that the ascendancy of the term coincided with the pronounced rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
[51] Some critics advocate a return to "POC" for its emphasis on coalition-building,[49][52] while others call for a contextual approach that names "the groups actually included and centered in the arguments themselves".