An acronym that stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color. The term is meant to unite all people of color while acknowledging that Black and Indigenous people face different and often more severe forms of racial oppression and cultural erasure as consequences of systemic white supremacy and colonialism. It is a noun and since it includes the word “people” it would be redundant to say “BIPOC people.” It is pronounced “buy-pock” as opposed to saying each letter individually.
BIPOC first came into use in the early 2010s but it became more prevalent in May 2020 during the protest movement against police brutality and institutional racism sparked by the May 25, 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
While BIPOC is commonly used by activists, it is not universally embraced. Some consider it redundant. For more discussion of the term see “Where Did BIPOC Come From?” an article by Sandra E. Garcia, which ran in The New York Times on June 17, 2020, and The BIPOC Project, an organization that “aims to build authentic and lasting solidarity among Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), in order to undo Native invisibility, anti-Blackness, dismantle white supremacy and advance racial justice.”
