South Africa's Tyla sparks culture war over racial identity

Gosh you managed to say absolutely nothing while pretending to be better than others because ‘news flash’ you ‘get it’.

A spokeswoman said the institution never used its previous name and requested that others called it Soas University of London

OK.
So what does the 'Soas' in 'Soas University of London' stand for?

Look at the website. SOAS is its name now.

A spokeswoman said the institution never used its previous name and requested that others called it Soas University of London

Is it? 🤔 id never use that outside the 4 walls of my house

Yes, but that is still what it stands for.

Do you mean SOAS? That officially changed its name 10 years ago?

I know that's how Americans see it, but it is still a normal term of expresion here. We also have a school of 'Oriental and African studies'. The orient and the occident are still valid terms.

I'm in my 70s so what is and isn't acceptable has changed in my lifetime. I wont tell you what my (black) husband calls himself as you'd almost certainly think it is offensive.

I struggle with person/people of colour as in my mind I associate it with slavery when the term "free person of colour" was used. Having said that I have no problem with other people using it, it just doesn't trip off the tongue for me.

Agreed all I saw when I read the exchanges is a bunch of Americans being a bunch of Americans and because they’re black believing they’re less colonial than their white counterparts. They have little to no knowledge of the rest of the world specifically South Africa and it’s complicated racial history, that is not just simply Mandela and apartheid and are happy to stay that way. Overgeneralisation of course. But very befitting for those tone deaf commentators imo

See my post regarding earnest academic theories cooked up in US universities in the 70s/80s but which have almost zero relevance in RL. Though have somehow managed to put down very deep and solid roots in the mainstream.

Apologies if this is too off-topic but I thought it was interesting from a general identity politics point of view.

Interesting, that.

No one does but mostly they just roll their eyes and hide the thread so it’s good that people are asking for clarification.

What's offensive and what's not can be very cultural.

And look at that!

id like someone to tell me who’s making up all the new rules without informing (getting input from) those who it is supposed to be helping.

I would imagine many Coloured South Africans will be furious at this attempt to deny their (very rich) culture.

I can remember back to the late 90s when even in the US 'coloured' was not always insulting. I've never lived there but I remember (for example) this was how some women on a chat site identified and they told me it was because they were not 'black' but had different colours of skin and they considered black to be too homogenous.

It is not at all the same as gender issues. A man calling themselves a woman is lying and denying reality, because he is not a woman. This artist calls herself Coloured, truthfully, because she is Coloured and always has been. With a capital letter. That is a distinctive ethnic and cultural group in South Africa, it not the same as saying "mixed race" as we would in the UK, which does not say anything about which cultural group you feel a part of. Being physically mixed race is part of being Coloured but not all of it. Calling herself Black would feel wrong for her, as to her that signifies a different group of people.

I thought it was interesting from the general point of who is and isn't allowed to choose their own identity, who is allowed to decide what is and isn't offensive.

Using race to bolster your gender critical position. If you can’t see the problem, you are the problem.

I’m not even sure what this means.

Anymore. I grew up with the term as normal, I’m in my forties. It used to be very normal.

I have a friend who is annoyed because she was Asian growing up but now (she was told in Uni) she’s not allowed to describe herself as simply Asian, she’s south Asian (Indian background) and that the term Asian is reserved for those who used to be, what we now know is offensive (oriental).

I think you should get a say in how you describe yourself, but I also think you need to consider your audience. I would never use the N word on myself or anyone, but there are people who need to hold on to that word. I find it offensive but I’m not arguing with anyone on how they describe themselves, but if they try to use it on me we will have a problem

Americanah by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie is an excellent book in every way, but is also interesting on the topic of African American vs African in America and how the cultures clash.

And when people hide any thread on racism (as I'm about to do with this one) in order to escape the coming wokescolding and bunfight instead of staying, talking and learning, it's because of posts like these.

Could you expand on that please?

LOL - proving my point. We use it, Duchess. My friends use it. I;ve never known anyone in my community, or close communities from the same part of Asia, to ever be offended. No one ever say s "far East Asian" lol.

So we'll keep using it, thanks. We don't bow down to what American's tell us how we should call ourselves.

My husband and I found the same - a term we and others happily use in our communities from our part of the word to describe ourselves, especially as a historical identifier from a British stand point, is immediately pounced on by arrogant Americans as "racist", "oh my god you can't use that word!" etc.

But what we find bizarre is that they tend to use "Asian American" only for Chinese Americans, whereas from a British standpooint that is ridiculous and a wide-sweeping paint brushing of a huge swathe of peoples, seeing as Asia is made up of 48 countries (which the majority of Americans can't seem to understand), many of whom have a large representative population in Britain so we use specific location identifiers rather than just "Asian". Asian who? Where? Southern? Western? Far East? And which country within those areas? So the term we use for ourselves we see as perfectly fine, it's been fine for the 4 decades we've lived here. no one in the UK has ever said anything about it or called us or others up on it, and we only had an issue when we went to America. We don't go to America any more, it;s way to racist.