Here in the good ole U.S.A. African American is the most politically correct term for a black person. Obviously this doesn’t make much sense in other parts of the world. So my question is what is the politcally correct term for black people in other parts of the world?
Australia calling.
For Aborigine we have Aborigine, Murrie in the north and Coorie in the south, although these terms are mostly used by Aborigines and not recommeneded unless you know all the connotations. Torres Straight Islanders are commonly reffered to as Islanders or in some cases TI’s. Polynesians are commonly referred to as Kanakas, though this is a bit dicey since it has historical connotations. Negroes are reffered to as Negroes, Asians as Asians, Indians as Indians etc. If someone’s trying to be real PC you’ll sometimes here references to ‘someone of Indian appearance’, which is fair enough if a bit long-winded. If you’re not willing to take a guess at someones ethnic background black people or dark people are generally reffered to as black people or dark people, just like tall people are called tall people and white people are white people. I’ve had a couple of amusing incidents when someone has tried to be PC and not refer to someone as black, saying things like "The tall bloke in the red shirt with the black hair’ when they could have just said “the dark bloke”. No one would take offence at being called dark if they are dark and the term is applied equally to all racial and ethnic groups.
I have a lot of “black” friends and most are divided on the issue.
Some want to be called African American. Some want to be called black. A friend of mine will go off if you call her African American. She says she is black, she ain’t from Africa, she ain’t never gonna go there and there is nothing even remotely African like about her. She says saying African is trying to qualify her. She has a point after all my parents came here from Yugoslavia but people don’t call me a Euro-American.
And they came in 1945 her relatives probably go back 2 or 3 hundred years on American Soil.
The thing is whatever you say most people who want to be called African American will not be offended if you call them black. They won’t be offened by the word black as they would be by Negro or Colored or the other “N” word.
I am reminded of an incident from my senior seminar English course a few years back. The topic was utopian lit, and one novel (can’t remember the title) featured a society on another planet. It was implied that the citizens in power were black, so one P.C. student tentatively asked the professor, “Um, is this character…African American?” I loved the response of a less-P.C. student, who interjected, “No, they’re on another planet. They are neither African nor American. They’re black. It’s OK to say the word ‘black.’” Well, it was funnier if you were there.
I can’t help noticing the word Aborigine is seldom heard these days. It’s always Aboriginal person/people, which sounds cumbersome and PC to me. I like the terms the Aborigines use themselves colloquially: black fella, white fella… Simple, to the point, and no offence is meant by it.
The debate over whether ethnic identification of crime suspect should be used by police is on again here. This is GQ, so I won’t go on about it, but “eugh”.
New Zealand here.
Calling anyone ‘black’ or ‘white’ around here is asking for trouble. I’ve heard some Maori refer to themselves as ‘black’, but I wouldn’t do it myself.
If you’re non-European, you could be Maori, Polynesian/Pacific Islander, Melanesian, African, Asian etc.
Just as an aside, there’s a problem with some white New Zealanders about the catch-all label “NZ European”. They prefer “New Zealanders” or “pakeha”.
People.
I know, smart-arse answer but I think it has merit.
This isn’t GD atarian and the idea has no merit. If there are fifty people at the bar and I want to draw your attemtion to the one obviously Aboriginal person in the crowd how does saying ‘the person’ help single him out?
I should have been more clear… I was referring to the use of “people” in a general sense. I wasn’t talking about individuals.
You are right this isn’t GD, which is why I’m not going to debate my position.
In the situation you mention I would look for some other way of describing the person first.
atarian why is using the color of a persons skin to physically describe them wrong?
I second atarian. If there is a bar full of people, how would I single out someone. How about, the guy in the red shirt? The one with the hat? That fellow with the dark hair. Or reddish hair, in some cases. The guy on the end. Fred over there from the University.
How would you do it if no one had a dark complexion. People with African ancestry don’t all look alike, nor do people with Asian ancestry or European or Native American. So use a little imagination just like you would have to do with say a room full of Irish, Germans, Scots, Chinese, etc.
I worked with a woman in Geneva who was of Ethiopian ancestry, but was born and raised in Poland. She now lived in French speaking Switzerland and was divorced from an Italian, so she had an Italian last name. In the end it was just easier to call her “Edith”.
Why is there anything wrong with identifying someone by a defining characteristic (whether it’s something genetic, something behavioural or something worn)? Sure, if you use that to justify negative treatment of them I have no sympathy. I doubt anyone posting here would disagree with that. However, I can’t see why saying “Joe’s the black guy at the bar” is any worse than “Joe’s the guy with glasses at the bar” or “Joe’s the really tall guy at the bar”, if that marks them out from everyone else at the bar.
Oh, Britain here - in my experience, people generally use black and Asian (although in more mixed areas, this would be more specific - Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and so on).
Crusoe, to be fair, many people of any skin tone would not have a big problem with this. However, some might. And the reason is that for a long time many people have difficulty seeing beyond the skin color of a person. The color becomes the person. It is a form of prejudice. Now if you are identifying someone in this manner, and they don’t know you from Adam, then how are they to know whether you are the (a) I don’t see past the skin color kind of bloke or the (b) skin color is not important to me, just a simple distinguishing characteristic kind of bloke. So I can see how this could rile some people.
(BTW, please don’t read anything personal into this response)
I do admit this seems a bit a picky. But until we get to the point that everyone is truly colorblind (and this is not in my experience just an American thing) that its the better way to go.
No, that’s a fair point, ShibbOleth. I wasn’t seeing how the person being pointed out might interpret that. Consider a little ignorance fought!
They call me hearing impaired so why not white impaired? I don’t think its gonna sit well.
[[In the situation you mention I would look for some other way of describing the person first.]]
I’ve told this story I’m sure in one of the other 453,662 threads on this very topic on the SDMB before, but here goes.
My son was the only black kid on his soccer team of boys all the same age, all wearing the same uniforms, and another mother was curious if he was mine. So she said, “is he the one who is a little taller than the others over on the right side?” This seemed absurdly ridiculous to me, and - if anything - over-aware of race. Jeez. One kid has red hair, one kid is short, and one kid - my kid - is the color of a Hershey’s kiss. Kinda hard to miss. If you’re describing physical attributes, race is sometimes relevant. In some other contexts, it’s not.
This is heading to GD soon, though aren’t we done yet?
Jill
Jill, it seems you would have a little more familiarty with this, given your personal perspective. But I would be curious as to why the other parent didn’t simply ask, “Which one is yours?” which is almost a cross-parental greeting, at least where I live.
FTR, my kids don’t look too much like me, but the screams of “Daddy” coupled with the hugs usually gives it away. And yeah, I’m pretty much done with this, didn’t mean to turn it into a GD. To be fair my points up to now have been opinion based, so maybe IMHO?