My recent column, “Call Me Black, Not BIPOC” was quoted by Connecticut State Senator Marilyn Moore while she spoke in favor of #TheCrownAct, a bill that bans natural hair discrimination in the workplace.

“‘She pointed to a recent New Haven Register op-ed by columnist Stacy Graham-Hunt, a journalist who is also the director of membership at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven,” Lucy Gellman of the Arts Paper reported.

In the piece, Graham-Hunt argues that wide adoption of the term “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), particularly among white institutions, has become the newest way of controlling the language and perception of Blackness through a white, Eurocentric lens.

‘That’s really the root of the problem,” Moore said. ‘Trying to erase the culture of people who were brought here who didn’t want to come, who were forced here, language taken away, families removed, and then when we seem to get to where we know who we are … trying to take that away from us.'”

Senators unanimously approved the bill, which will now go before Governor Ned Lamont to be signed into law.