I guess people should be niggardly with their use of the word “colored”.
The term “people of colour” starts to bother me if I think about it too hard (Look! I have a colour! I’m #216 in my book of colour cards!) but I recognize its utility in describing people who are oppressed due to their colour. Another useful term I heard once for this was “racialized people.”
One term I don’t like is “Latin-American,” simply because the conversation always goes like this:
me: What does “Latin-American” mean?
someone: It refers to inhabitants of the Americas who speak a Latin-derived language.
me: Does that mean that the Québécois are Latin-American?
someone: Uh…
Not that I have much stake in the issue one way or another, but I prefer the term “Latino” (which has the advantage of being Spanish and AFAIK Portuguese but not French).
Back in 1991, I had an English class with one black student. When the teacher mentioned “Black, Like Me” he took offense and said that he wanted to be referred to as “colored” (as if they should change the book or something?). She instantly corrected him and said that “colored” has become offensive because it was the term typically used during segregation to distinguish between “white” and “colored” bathrooms, drinking fountains, etc. In any case, I wouldn’t call someone “colored” because it does sound bad, IMHO.
I don’t see “black” as a very accurate term either, but there are no other terms. “African American” only works for those of African descent. “Negro” is considered racist as well. That leaves “people with ‘browner’ skin than those who have lighter ‘peachy’ skin,” which doesn’t flow well.
sort of an aside, but related. Why the heck are we called Caucasian, anyway? Having met many different people from the Caucasus, we don’t look terribly much like them, anyway. My dictionary also states that the term is no longer used in an anthropoligical or other scientific context. I refer to myself as “white,” if anything at all, and I reserve “Caucasian” to someone coming from Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc…That area. And, yes, I have had occassion to use it in this manner, so it’s not simply just the whims of a pedant.
(of course, the “we” in my above post refers to “us white folk” :))
I must say that although I would never use the word, because
I understand that it’s offensive, I fully understand what MrNeutron is saying. IMO it is whatever’s in fashion. Well, maybe fashion sounds trivial, but whatever term is the current acceptable trend. I dont really know how that can be disputed, because if it were truly an utterly offensive
issue, certainly the NAACP would have changed its name by now?
My Filipino of Latin descent roommate used to refer to himself as colored. It’s a tough word because it has such negative connotations from the pre-Civil Rights era South, but it can be an effective shorthand to describe people who are vulnerable to racial discrimination. This vulnerability is captured better by “colored” than by other racial categories (black, Latino, whatever) because they’re underinclusive. “Colored” can refer to people of, e.g., greek or spanish descent who are treated shabbily because the person they deal with thinks they’re not white. (My sister for instance – everyone in our family is white but for whatever genetic reason she’s very darkly-complected and at first blush you’d guess she were Latina.) I’ve used “colored” in the past for this purpose, but now I used “marginalized” because the only negative connotations there are the ones damning us oppressors, and I’m perfectly happy to do that.
–Cliffy
Look up colored. Yes, it has been considered offensive.
But if you look up “people of color” on google, you’ll notice that it’s extremely pc liberal groups that have adopted this term, I think as if to say that they’re so liberal it’s OK after all. A little like black people using the dreaded N word because they’re referring to themselves.
Oops. Not quite. Look up person of color.
Where did I hear about the man at a speaking engagement trying to be so PC he referred to minorities as “people of color” and women as “people of gender?”
People of color sounds rather moronic to me. The term “colored” has always sounded mildly offensive, but not intentional. As mentioned before, older people tend to use it as a non-offensive term. I just use black and white. They’re simple, most people don’t get offended, and people know what I’m talking about. Once, I saw a form with the check boxes “African-American” and “white.” ::rolls eyes::
As an example for those who don’t like color terms. Two people rob a bank. One is “white” and the other is “black.” How would you describe them for a TV bulletin without using any color terms? Although it’s been years since I watched TV, I seem to recall that the news still referred to an alleged criminal as “A white/black male, between 5’10” and 6’1", etc."
throatshot, describing a bank robber as “coloured” is a lot vaguer than describing him as “black”. It usually means “anyone who isn’t white”, and that includes people who look extremely different from each other. Some of them probably even look more like white people than they look like other members of the “coloured” group. That’s my problem with the term. I’d have the same problem with the term “people of colour”. Not to mention the added PC-ness…
Does referring to a bank robber as black or white actually narrow down the field of potential suspects far enough to be of any use at all? Or is it just a media coded way to tell their viewers “this crime was done by one of them” or “this crime was done by one of us”?
The word colored for African Americans has not been in use in the US for many years (since the 50s). I would be surprised if you say that you’ve heard this in everyday speech.
I myself have never heard this word used in everyday speech, such as “there goes a colored person”, or “it’s that tall colored guy in the khaki pants.”
For some reason, even though some terms have fallen into disuse, institutions such as the NAACP have kept the old words, otherwise it’d be the NAAAAP. The other one I can think of is the United Negro College Fund.
Since these terms seem to come and go, I wonder if the term African American will be considered offensive in the future?
The TV bulletin could always say:
“Two people robbed a bank. And one was darker than the other.”
Solves the problem and completely PC.
No it doesn’t, that is a totally inadequate description. Could be 2 caucasions, one with a tan. Could be two black guys, one happens to be darker than the other.
Why not just say one white guy and one black guy?
The problem is, changing the words doesn’t change the underlying thought beneath them. So the new word takes on the context of the old. How many words for gimp have we had since the 80s? Remember when the kids on the short bus became “special”? If someone is racist, it doesn’t matter what word they use. Same with someone who is color blind.
It is time for a new batch of words though. I propose using the terms “Screech” and “Urkel” for the color distinctions.
laughs That’s great, matt. Too bad the census has already been taken. I’d have listed myself as PANTONE™ 727 (uncoated). 
I’ll never forget a great Bloom County comic strip:
Am I having deja vu, or have I seen this question about 4 times since I started posting 2 months or so ago?
Is it the same person?
It is the same wording of the question, I am pretty sure of that.
I would search for the others, but I have cookies turned off and that fucks up the search system.
Is it a troll??
We are not from the USA. We live in the Caribbean, so the words “colored” and “Black” have somewhat different intonations here than stateside. Though I am “white” I would take offence at someone describing my lovely carmel coloured wife as “Black”. I would not consider coloured as anything more than a technicaly correct discription of her skin tone.
I find “Black” to be a much more inaccurate description of the majourity of the ‘african-american-decended’ peoples than coloured. Mostly here we say that light girl or that dark guy. Interestingly, because the large majourity of the people on the idland are of african decent, the default colour here is dark, so talking about a person not present it is assumed he/she is “coloured”, and you would only describe his/her ethenticy (sp?)if it was something else.
I have never taken offence at being called a ‘gringo’, which only happens occasionally in latin countries, never here.
I just asked Mrs Retief about the OP and she said she would not take offence at being called coloured, because she is. She also said she would not take offence at being called “Black” in the US because that seems to be the only PC way to address “african-americans” there. Here however someone who called her black would be advised to get his/er eyes checked.
Amazingly enough, almost everyone has completely has missed my point ENTIRELY, even after i tried to clarify several times.
THIS WAS NOT A THREAD ABOUT PC-NESS, AND WHAT WE SHOULD CALL BLACK PEOPLE.
What i was talking about was the term “people of color”, which does NOT mean black, but nonwhite. What pisses me off about that term is that it catagorizes people into 2 different things. White, and not white. Why does white race get it’s own catagory while every other race is just lumped together? Why are they special enough to get their own catagory? I can’t think of any term that divides the world into black and nonblack or asian and nonasian.
THAT was what i was complaining about.
The Great Gazoo: Before i started this thread I searched for both “colored” and “coloured” on this forum with the time span set to 2 years, and found nothing. Same wording of the question? Not even close. I’ve never posted about this term before. Why don’t just turn on your cookies for a second to check before you start accusing people of being a troll based on events that only happened in your head?
Nobody else wants to associate with them.
Don’t kill me, I’m Irish!