What's your position?

Person of colour sounds very similar to coloured person, so presumably you'd want to avoid either of those terms.

But it reads like you're saying the opposite.

endisneigh: no, I'm not from the USA. But I'm reasonably familiar with its Jim Crow era. I'm not sure what point you think I was trying to make, but I'll try to clarify. I'm not saying anything about how people should refer to themselves, I really don't care. You asked: "why you think one term is somehow more appropriate than the other". I can't speak for swayvil of course, but my argument is that 'black' is much more descriptive than just 'colour' because there are so many colours. "Black" is also a range, but it's a more specific range than just "colour". Reading your question again, perhaps it's the word "appropriate" that's tripping us up? If you're trying to describe something, then it's more "appropriate" to be a descriptive as possible. If that's what swayvil was banned for, that's pretty insane in my books.