Was Jackie Robinson BIPOC? A Study of Current Racial Identity Terms and Their (Mis)application to Well-Known Figures, Past and Present.

The article examines contemporary preferences for racial identity terms used to describe Black Americans by surveying 142 participants primarily from the northeastern United States. It finds that respondents favored the term African American over Black, with both terms preferred significantly more than People of Color, Non-White, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). The study also reveals that participants often applied contemporary labels like African American to historical figures despite anachronism and showed varied labeling for multiracial individuals such as Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. Additionally, while People of Color and BIPOC were viewed as more inclusive, BIPOC was rarely chosen to describe exclusively Black individuals, reflecting ongoing debates about its appropriateness. The authors emphasize the importance of centering self-identification within the Black community to avoid marginalization through externally imposed terminology.