Exactly. ‘Black’, ‘Indian’ etc. are used as something quite separate from nationality. The 2001 Census is a good place to get the ‘official’ terminology, including “Black Caribbean”, “British Asian”, etc. The principle of all these terms are that they are how a person chooses to identify themselves, not how they are identified by some external judgement or system. Plus, the ‘XYZ-American’ type of labelling seems to be something purely used in America.
It’s toned down nowadays, but there’s (quite rightly) a mix of all sorts of names used. Plus, I’d suggest the observation that they never used names like John comes from not always noticing the occassions when they do.
Hmm? Not sure I get what you’re after, here: I was just giving an example of restrictions on speech, based on politics (albeit hideous genocidal politics), outside of the US. I wasn’t taking a side as to whether this sort of political correctness is a good thing.
I’ve known one person describe himself as Anglo Indian (and I don’t know if he still does). In his case it was a historical thing, both his parents descended from British Indian mixed marriages and hence were part of the Anglo Indian population in India before they moved to the UK.
You’re right. I’m surprised I forgot that one, since it bothers me as well, and it’s the only one that comes up as an issue between me and my wife. We don’t have kids yet, but I’ve let her know why “half” bothers me and tried to get her to switch to “half-[something].” Usually when she says it I just make jokes about having a baby torso rolling around the house.
I don’t know if you’d call it a PC version, but I know a few in the gaijin community who refer to their Japanese-whatever kids as “doubles,” which bugs me almost as much. Not gonna use it.
In Canada, we mostly just use “black”. You sometimes hear African-Canadian if someone is going for heightened political correctness.
In general, we go in less for hyphens. Our newspaper of record, The Globe and Mail, rarely mentions ethnicity unless it’s directly relevant, and sometimes not even then. For instance, Maher Arar, deported to Syria from the US, was almost never refered to as “an Arab-Canadian” – he was usually just “a Canadian.” Even suspected terrorists are usually just refered to as “Canadians,” if they have Canadian citizenship. Most other papers follow suit, though there are a few exceptions.
I find that’s generally not the case in American media, where if a suspected terrorist is of an Arab background, that’s almost-always highlighted.
The poet and professor George Elliot Clarke, who’s one of the most foremost intellectuals in this country on the subject race, makes distinctions between the subcultures of Afrocadian, African-Canadian, and African-American. “Africadian” refers to the centuries-old, established black community in the Maritimes, which Clarke himself is from. African-Canadian refers to the the established, local subcultures that grew up farther west. African-American is derivative, coming through American pop-culture, and is what Americans think of as black urban culture.
That’s about all I know of Clarke’s theories so far, because I haven’t had a chance to study them in depth. Still, it’s probably a simplification even to suggest that there is one African-American subculture across the US – without knowing as much about American history as I do about Canadian, I wouldn’t be surprised if there several.
I agree with this. I didn’t mean for my post to imply that every innocent question leads to a lengthy discussion about heritage. It’s not like that at all. If someone asks where I’m from, I say ‘Sheffield’ or whatever. (I don’t live in Sheffield, but I am a notorious liar). I identify myself as English, or British maybe. It’s just that sometimes people asked for a more detailed explanation. Which I’m perfectly OK with.
I think the OP was asking about political correctness as a cultural (and linguistic) phenomenom. But as far as the (ofttimes concomitant) restrictions on speech go, you do have a good point: critics of PCness should commend the US for the freedom of expression that cannot be found (to the same degree) in many other countries.
But what if someone is British-born of Indian parents, say? Would you say they are Indian, or they are British? This is why Americans hyphenate nationalities, not because we’re not all “good enough” to be American or whatever, but because it’s a shortcut in describing cultural backgrounds, which often remain relevent in a family even after many generations in the US.
I’m not sure that it’s the same thing though. I’m not exactly versed in European politics…but I was under the impression that being Polotically Correct was trying to avoid a racial stereotype…The Nazis weren’t exactly a racial class that was unfairly stereotyped. It just didn’t seem like a good example.
It was my experience (purely as a tourist, mind you) that the people in the UK who called themselves “British” were almost always born in England. People from Scotland and Wales (and certainly Northern Ireland) seemed to avoid that term when referring to themselves.
Or did I just happen to run across a skewed sample?
The US might reign in political correctness… but the disease seems to have spread far and wide… though naturally not as strong.
Its quite common to refer to blacks here in Brazil as “Afro Descendentes” (african descent) and several other terms for those in wheelchair or mobility problems. Most people joked about it initially… but its catching on.
Racial distinctions are mentioned in PC only for blacks though… since european and Japanese originated Brazilians are quite proud of their origins. Its quite common for example to refer to Japanese-Brazilians just as “Japanese” or “Nissei” even if its quite clear they are Brazilian nationals.
Gender words aren’t used much… since being a Romance language words gender are defined.
I dont understand this exactly. Are the “Afro Descendentes” not proud of their origins (I know they are quite a large group so I’m sure it varies) too? Why would they then want a PC term that mentions their African descent if they aren’t? And by European-originated Brazilians, do you mean people who’s families have come recently or older families? Do all Euro-Brazilians (once again, generalizing) prefer one mentioning their country of origin, calling them white, or calling them Brazilian?
‘Asian’ is the commonly-used term as a catch-all for Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans, both immigrants and British-born. ‘British Asian’ will crop up occasionally. Sometimes Asian people use religious affiliations as an important identifier - Muslims from India could easily have less in common with Indian Sikhs or Hindus than with Pakistanis.
The point of my mini-ramble is that “British-Bangladeshi”, or whatever, isn’t necessarily describing anything in a more helpful way than any other term.
Err…I think the issue here is that I include a 30 yo woman in the “young people”. I personnally never used the word “black”, and it would be as weird to me as using recent slang words commonplace amongst the youth. I don’t think anybody I know well ever use “black”, either. And my acquaintances would rarely be Le Pen electors.
You know, it’s not like I never met a black person ever… And I don’t remember having ever been told such a thing. It’s (“noir” being somehow derogatory) not an existing concept amongst my peers. Anyway, as I already mentionned, we don’t have any alternative apart maybe “african”, since “black” belongs to our vocabulary exactly as much as "babtou’ (for people of french origin) or “elle est vraiment bonne” (for a beautiful girl) does. In other words, it doesn’t. Its “urbanite youthspeak” for us.
I don’t see what it proves. If, as I assert, the large majority of the overall population (not young, not leftists, not urbanites) use the word “noir”, necessarilly the racist subset of said population will also use it.
Of course not. It can also be created by the intellectuals,the politicians, etc… But in the case of “black” I saw it appearing, so I can tell you it appeared amongst the teens. I think it came mostly along with the “break dance”, the rap culture, the “american black” clothing style, etc…There was a general attempt to imitate the american black culture amongst the people who started this trend in france (and where generally black themselves) and the word was imported at the same time ( “black” went in hand in hand with the “nike” shoes).
Nope. But stating that “noir” is derogatory is invalid because its not true amongst the vast majority of the population (at least at this point. Maybe it will be different 25 years down the road). It’s normally a completely neutral word.
The situation isroughly similar in France (with the appearance of “ambassadeurEs”, “IngénieurEs du son”, etc…) except that though it’s now mandated for use in government documents, and more an more common in the printed medias, it’s not widespread amongst the population, not many people at this point would write “ingénieure” and hearing “madame LE maire” is as likely as hearing “madame LA maire” (“mairesse” wouldn’t be used. All feminine ending in “esse” have been avoided, since people thought it sounded bad/derogatory. The only one already existing I can think of, “doctoresse”, dissapeared in the process and was replaced by the made up “docteurE” when " madame le docteur" or “la docteur” isn’t. At this point it’s a bit of a mess.).
To the best of my knowledge, there was never really an issue over what to call manhole covers. The only times that I have heard people actually talk about this supposed controversy were when critics of the women’s movement or critics of gender-free language wanted to ridicule other genuine concerns about biased language.
Well it beats calling them Negroes or blacks… no? PC talk is rarely demanded by the offended… but usually comes from those who are afraid of offending IMO.
Naturally there are some who relish their african origins… especially in Bahia where there is a strong cultural connection. Otherwise blacks and mixed are usually poorer, less educated and certainly looked down upon by themselves and “whites”.
Non-portuguese Europeans would be more correct, be it recent or not (recent is 1820 onwards)… we have a lot of Italians, Germans and various others in the south and a few in the southwest. (They were usually poor immigrants that took over work on coffee plantations in substitution of slave labor.) Many refer to their being “Italian” or “German” or “Japanese”… they do strongly identify with their origins and their being “Gauchos” (southern State). Still everyone thinks of themselves as Brazilian. Naturally they might think less of other “darker” Brazilians… but their own national identity isn’t in question.
When I once asked my wife about PC terms in her native Brazil, she laughed and said that regardless of whatever term anyone would use to indicate dual nationality, most folks would simply say Eu sou brasileiro! (I’m a Brazilian!)
OK, I was filling in a survey just now, and thought of this thread.
The question:
What is your race?
The options:
White
Black
Asian
Arabic/Middle Eastern
Other
Now I understand that this is a just a survey (asking for views about the upcoming election, if you must know), but it’s a UK survey, for UK respondents, and I thought it went some way to illustrate the idea of ‘we say it like it is’.
