I must have missed a spectacular number of Memos, because I came into this thread to say “WTF is the OP complaining about? He is, isn’t he?”
Then again, I’ve never seen “Coloured” as a racist term (outside of Seth Efreeka, of course)- a bit antiquated, perhaps, but then I like antiquated things and have often found “Coloured” to be a useful neutral word for someone whose Ethnicity isn’t immediately clear.
On the other hand, Australia isn’t exactly a poster child for Political Correctness or Multiculturalism, despite what some people would like to think, so the situation is a bit different to the US.
When I was a kid in the 50s and early 60s, both “Negro” and “Colored” were used in polite conversations and acceptable to my black friends in junior high and high school. If they weren’t, we were certainly on friendly enough terms that they would have told me. So, I’ve been through five terms in 60 years: Negro, colored, black, Africa-American, and people-of-color.
Now, switching roles:
Moderator interveneth: I’m not quite sure why this is in Cafe Society – seems like the Pit or Great Debates would be a better forum? However, since it’s sort of about words and the evolution of language, I guess it can stay here. Also, I hate to move a thread that’s already two pages long.
If I can continue the general hijack for a moment… When Spike Lee criticized Clint Eastwood for not showing any black soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers, Lee said:
I thought it was odd that Lee said “Negro”. I wondered if he was being sarcastic or if he just says “Negro” sometimes. Does anybody have a read on this?
For example, it feels awkward to imagine Richard Pryor “acting out” walking down a sidewalk, meeting a friend and greeting him with: “S’up, colored Dude?”
So, what is the name of the President? Is it “George Walker Bush”, or “George W. Bush”, or “George Bush”, or “President George W. Bush”, or even “Dubya”?
No, very often names of people are not objective facts, as I’ve learned over many years doing authority control as a library cataloguer. And President Bush is simple compared to many other cases of people going by multiple names.
<shrug> My grandmother says “colored”, which is jarring only because it brings back the tone of an older, less nice time. She means no harm by it and certainly doesn’t use it in a derogatory manner. She’s 93. You can tell her to say something else if you like, but you’ll have to yell real loud and not sit on her left side.
For that matter, in this country I’ve never heard “colored” used derogatorily. We have other words for that.
I am a bit older than you, and I can remember[ul][li]colored[]Negro[]Afro-American[]black[]Black (yes, that’s different)person of color[/ul]And I have had people tell me that “colored person” is offensive but “person of color” was OK. [/li]
I prefer Halfrican-Hamerican for our beloved President-to-be.
In the US, “colored” is so outdated that it sounds jarring to many of us, especially coming from someone as young as Lindsay Lohan, given that (as jsgoddess pointed out), it has never been in common usage in her lifetime. It’s the kind of thing where many people are willing to gloss over it coming from an elderly person … but when someone Lohan’s age says it, it might more often be interpreted as being willfully obtuse and thus carrying some sort of barb or subtext … then I remember that Lohan has a track record of being pretty much a simpleton. I’m not even sure it’s her fault, as both of her parents are out to lunch, but a simpleton none-the-less.
Sounds a lot like people looking for something to be offended by, to be honest.
It’s not like she offered to extend a “Laurel, and Hardy handshake to our new… Nigger President” or anything like that.
I will, however, make a note not to refer to black people as “Coloured” the next time I’m in the US- although I really don’t see any difference between “Coloured person” and “Person of Colour” anyway…
I took no offense at all. I saw it as a slip of tongue - reminding oneself what NOT to say - unfortunately that’s what comes out.
She was very openly an Obama supporter - I say: slow news day - no big deal.
I’ve been called Colored (by my grandparent’s generation)
Black - by my parents and peers and James Brown:)
AA - by politically correct people who are much deeper than me
The N word - by some ignorant idiots.
Through it all, I’m still the same wonderful, gorgeous person.
If we accept that negro, black, colored and African American were all considered, at one time to be polite and acceptable words to describe a race of people, the question is; when those words fall out of favor as the acceptable terms, do those words now become unacceptable racial slurs?
That’s another good point. Even if we were to grant that the issue of correct terminology was settled a long time ago, can you really fault someone for thinking that “colored person” is acceptable when “person of color” is being bandied about nowadays?
I read a statistic somewhere that said 40% of African-Americans prefer to be called black; 40% of blacks prefer to be called African-American.
What was most interesting is that it tended to be divided along income lines: generally speaking, the people who preferred “black” tended to be wealthier; the people who preferred “African-American” tended to be poorer.
I don’t recall where I read this statistic, or if they broke down the word usage by age (as I suspect younger people would be poorer, in general).
I think African-American is a six syllables too long and imprecise to boot. A Muslim man born in Cairo qualifies, as does a pasty white descendant of Dutch settlers in Johannesburg; and the term wrongfully includes black people from Haiti, Jamaica, and Africa itself who are not citizens of the U.S.
To give this a Cafe Society flavor, there’s a scene in Ocean’s Eleven (remake) that keys on Bernie Mac being insulted by Matt Damon referring to him as “colored”.
IMHO, it’s not that “colored” in and of itself is offensive; it’s that someone who’s so behind the times to use the word is probably mentally stopping himself from using “n****er”.
