It is really not about People of Color vs Colored People, those 3 word phrase vs 2 word phrase. Instead what feels natural as a grammar option when you use PoC vs CP allows you to construct different style of sentences.

I will have to look up the precise grammar terms (I am not an expert of grammar as the rest of RAFO can attest to ), but I am talking about stuff like nested phrases, prepositions, adjective phrases, etc.

But certain words, and certain ways of saying the sentence, force the brain to slow down and figure out if you are modifying a subject, predicate, a verb, etc. You have to go slower, you have to use more of your frontal lobe to parse the language.

So how you say a sentence allows you to have more nuance as the speaker, but it also forces the listener to listen more slowly, to listen more conditionally, and to not to leap to conclusions.

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Colored People is a way of saying the same thing as People of Color, but it allows your "fast brain" to think it understands what the other speaker is saying. Aka you look before you leap.

(I do not read facebook and other similar stuff because I hate to get invested into these minefields and such the SJW people create. So trust me I understand how mentally exhaustive this is, and I feel often it is more about feeling good rather than productive change, or actual real harmony in social relationships / interactions.)

But even though I do not like all of this controversy even if there is none. How you say things and how you do things do matter. For example let's do a metaphor and not talk about race and the internet for a second.

A mom brushing her daughter's or son's hair can be a very painful experience, or one of the most relaxing things she can do for her kid. She can't stop the bully, she can't stop many of the stressors in the kid's life for she can't always be there every second of every day. But physical grooming that is tender, respectful, but also TAKES TIME promotes social bonding and has de-stress effects for both the parent and the child. This is very known in both the human but also the animal literature, it is the reason why cats groom their kittens, similar stuff with mice and rats, and so on.

Humans are one of the few species that form social groups with people we are not related to, aka not clones (like insects), or close cousins like many mammals. We use social communication much to do social grooming as we (both humans and animals) do social grooming in order to maintain the social order with things like combing your kid's hair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_grooming

Well I am not trying to defend the SJW here, but even if they can't explain it with words, you can explain it with an intuition standpoint / instinctual standpoint. There is a very obvious difference between a person who is trying to be careful, respectful, while talking about a subject and not try to create controversy, and a different person who just bumbles their way into this. Much like how there is a difference from a parent who combs their kid's hair way too fast and too roughly without paying attention, and a parent who is more methodical and observant.

Personally the SJW people are much the same people who do call out culture, but also organize other ways to maintain social harmony. Charities, Altruism, Pledge Drives, Bake Sales, etc. Perhaps reality would be so much better if we focus more on these communal tasks that are giving, instead of communal tasks of calling out, or poking the bear, shaming, of fighting some social crusade.