I'm assuming good faith, and that you truly don't understand the difference. I'd be curious to know if it's because you're old enough to remember when "colored" was "fine", or too young to have an understanding of the racist usage of "colored".
"While the distinctions can be complicated, the information is readily available for anyone willing to seek it out. That means reading and having meaningful conversations with people of different races."
Sorry, both are racist--they're just two almost identical ways to say "not white." It's a term that gets used primarily by white people--most black people consider themselves black, not "poc," most Guatemalans consider themselves as such, not "poc," etc.--to erase all the differences and distinct interests between all these groups and reduce them to really the only think they have in common: that they're not white.
This is genuinely one of the less helpful comments I've seen on HN.
Instead of simply saying the reason is 'X' or even providing a link to a resource that explains why. You have linked to an article that can be fairly summarized as "Educate yourself".
This is possible even less helpful than LMGTFY link.
> You have linked to an article that can be fairly summarized as "Educate yourself".
And crucially, provides a reading list for doing so. I posted this understanding that anyone not interested in educating themselves is not going to find prescriptive recommendations for doing so useful.
What I truly understand is that if it is racist to say "colored person", then switching the terms around on the euphemism treadmill doesn't fix anything.
Give it another decade, and I promise you that BIPOC will be a racial slur. I've just ditched it ahead of time, so I won't have to write apologies about how I "didn't know better back then."
For anyone not aware, it stands for The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Founded in 1909, when polite society was at "colored people" on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill for "African Americans". Or are we fully at BIPOC now?
