It was…not what I expected 
I don’t think the ‘Indians’ have a leg to stand on.
Seriously?
“Mascots of Color”?
Indigenous mascots.
“People of Red Color” 
Does she need to?
You may have pushed it a schooch too far, there.
A 26-year-old didn’t grow up with colored or nego. He didn’t grow up with Indian instead of Native American. He didn’t even grow up when oriental was applied to people as well as rugs.
I do not understand this logic. I expect people to say the things they have heard in their lifetime. I would not expect a 26 year old to speak of the “bee’s knees” or the “cat’s pajamas”. This is a phrase more likely to be said by someone older who had heard it more often in their life. If it was intentional then his age is irrelevant, if it was unintentional then his young age is more likely.
Good, nobody needs to waste any more time explaining it to you then.
You just explained it. It’s not a word a 26-year-old would normally say. That’s why his age is relevant.
Point is, if you’re some old guy using an old word, you might get a pass, saying you just had a brain fart and used a word from when you were younger. A young person, on the other hand, has no such excuse.
There’s just no way a 26 year old in 2020 both knew the word “colored” and didn’t know it was offensive to use today.
Colored became offensive because after it fell out of common usage (in America) the only people still using it were mostly racist as fuck.
It’s pretty much the verbal equivalent of wearing a MAGA hat or flashing the OK sign in that it was a mostly benign word that has become offensive do to it’s close association with racist fucks. If person of color gets co-opted by the racist fucks next, then yes, it will eventually become offensive as well.
This seems to be pretty spot on.
So, someone who is supposed to be a professional in front of a camera should be given a pass and “educated” about something that became unacceptable forty-odd years ago? No, they did the right thing!
Yeah, the word itself doesn’t have the strong ‘insult’ connotations that I usually associate with slurs, it just became distinctly outdated. But once it fell out of favor, the only people still using it in conversation were either really old (as in 90+ today) who grew up with it and didn’t change out of it during the time where it was just ‘not used anymore’ or people being actively racist. So while it wasn’t originally offensive (see the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) the only people under 90 who keep using it are people who are used to hanging out in actively racist circles and either slip up or are trying to signal their membership in such circles.
Also, part of the point of signalling like this is that the signaler can hide under a veil of ‘why are you so hyper-sensitive’. ‘Colored’ works really well for that because it’s not an inherently offensive term the way various others are (“oh, is the NAACP racist now?”), and in fact is pretty close to the ‘person of color’ phrasing. This makes it easy for some people to swallow the idea that people are overreacting to the word or that it was somehow a mistake, though clearly it didn’t work as a screen in this case.
I’m tire of explaining this. The vast majority of the people who have used the word ‘colored’ as in this context have an average age older than me, and I am way older than 26. His youth is an indication he didn’t understand what he was saying, and it has no relationship whatsoever to his intentions.
I think you have that exactly backwards. An older person who grew up when it was OK, even the preferred term, may have the excuse that he didn’t know what he was saying. A younger person has to be using it intentionally, since it has completely fallen out of favor and he wouldn’t have come across it in a neutral way.
When Abe Lincoln referred to Uhuru as a “charming negress” in a Star Trek episode, he’s excused because that’s how people talked in the 1850s. If this 26-year-old referred to Harris as a “charming negress”, there’d be no doubt about his intentions.
This is why your argument fails. There is no reciprocal relationship between an old person using an archaic term unintentionally and a younger person then using that word intentionally.
What on earth do you think his intention was?
To slide a racist slur under the radar.
Or he’s too stupid to be trusted with that job. Either way, he should be out.