[quote=Yog Sothoth]
I am black, but I refer to myself as a Louisiana Creole since that's where my family is from. I'm more French than African since my family is heavily mixed. In my opinion black is almost as flawed of a term as people of color, the skin color variation from dark to light makes that term just dumb.
[/quote]

By that argument, calling somebody Asian is dumb because of the slight feature variance and skin tone between nationalities. Likewise, a Mediterranean white person typically has a more olive complexion and darker hair and eyes while a Nordic white person tends to have lighter eyes and hair with a paler complexion. Or heck, a Native American can range anywhere from a South American Incan to an Arctic Inuit, but you still consider them Native American. If I saw you and were asked to describe you, I'd just say black. I'm not going to know where your family is from any more than you know where mine is from. Plus, I'm pretty sure most government forms that ask for your ethnicity aren't going to accept Louisiana Creole as a response. If everyone nitpicked and enforced what people called their ethnicity, we'd have to memorized literally thousands of different ethnic permutations when a simple generalization works a lot more efficiently without being racially insensitive in the slightest. 

[quote=Kidd]
I feel mixed on the term "people of color." On one hand, I agree with you two. It gives the impression that white is normal / default and everyone else can just be grouped together as a general whole. On the other, I think it's useful when referring to the marginalized racial groups as a whole. "People of color" are denied many opportunities, "people of color" have to deal with their culture being attacked and erased daily. "People of color" (in western society) most certainly deal with struggles white people do not have to deal with. Maybe some feedback/advice on this would help. I personally don't use the term because of my mixed opinion, but I see it very often and kinda just stay quiet because I'm not sure what to say, lol
[/quote]

Simple, "ethnic minority" works fine as a catch-all phrase, because it works for any society. If I lived in China, I'd be the ethnic minority there. Of course, it helps to look into a particular situation closely before jumping to the conclusion that everyone who happens to be a different race than the majority is suffering the same slights and inequities as another just because they're not a majority group. As with anything, knowledge is key and while it's good to champion the rights of the under represented, it's good to keep in mind that not all struggles are created equal. For example, an Asian isn't going to be effected by native land disputes or demanding compensation for residential schools, a black person isn't going to be suffering from the same discrimination as an Arab in a post 9/11 world, and so on. It's part of why I'm not a fan of using a "catch all" term for non-whites because I kind of feel like if you start to lump everything into one, the lines start to blur a bit and that leads some people to adopt an "us verses them" mentality, which is awful.