It’s a subtle thing, but the rule is:
To say “colored people” is racist and bigoted.
To say “people of color” is approved of by the PC language police.
It’s subtle, but that’s the current rule.
Also, in the past “colored people” meant black. Nowadays, “people of color” can refer to any non-white people. So people such as Ocasio-Cortez, of Puerto Rican background, can claim to be people of color.
Do you want to own the Bloom County strip where a PC’ified Steve Dallas confronts his mom on how she describes black people? Well, you can for just a hunerd and fiddy dollars: https://www.berkeleybreathed.com/store/special-editions-and-vintage-prints/people-of-color
Classic comedy.
According to my ancestry.com DNA results I am 19% Iberian, 13% German, 13% west African and 6% Taino (the Indians of Puerto Rico.)
Would I be considered a woman of color?
(The rest of me is a smattering of different European ethnicities.)