To not know if describing a person as coloured is politically incorrect.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Was talking to a friend today and I mentioned I had met one of his colleagues (but I wasn't sure who). He said. Oh was she a coloured lady?

I said yes and we each knew who it was I had met. I was a bit taken aback as you don't really hear the word coloured used anymore. But it was probably the best way to describe her (kind of Mediterranean / Indian).

Was I being too politically correct for being at the way he described her?

"Agreed, perception; words mean what they mean."

Excellent. Then as 'black' is no longer racist, we can use it in any context we like.

Go on, then.

You are all cunts

That is all.

All of us? Thanks

I am. Deffo. She's spot on

i do not feel it is up to anyone else but myself to decide if i should feel offended, upset or angered by what someone has said no matter what the reason behind it is

i can not choose what others do and do not feel offended by that is their choice to make

?He who takes offence when no offence is intended is a fool, and he who takes offence when offence is intended is a greater fool.?

Brilliant - will remember that one.

I would, Whatme. You're going to need it

Aitch - 'as a kid i was very aware that there was a difference in the kids who were allowed to say 'paki's' for the shop and those who were not. it was an interesting social divider, in retrospect.'

I'm curious in what way. Where would I have been placed in your social reference as we grew up using paki for the corner shop not even realising it meant anything to do with the shop owners nationality.

i guess i mean that you might not have had a clue what the word was referencing, but your parents would have done. so those kids that were forbidden from using it were generally from more aspirational, white collar probably even educated families.

'so those kids that were forbidden from using it were generally from more aspirational, white collar probably even educated families.'

fair enough, yes that wasn't us. Working class, blue collar kids from a council estate like 95% of the kids in town.

yeah, so the fact that we weren't allowed to call the shop 'the pakis' was the sort of thing that marked us out as 'pure snobs' round our bit, and caused us trouble in school, that sort of thing.

I remember going to play at my classmates house on the only private estate in our town, i thought it was well posh, it was 3 bed Wimpy semi detached. but then I was posh on my council estate for not swearing and smoking and letting the boys shag me at 15.

funny, isn't it? and you just don't think about it at the time, or at least i didn't. the amount of doings or near-doings i got because i lived in a house and had specs...

oh and the HASSLE for not sniffing farkin' bags of glue...

I was such a council estate wimp, it's a wonder they never threw me off but I was obviously meant for better things!

lol.

The biblical quote about taking offence is all well and good, but context matters. If you know you live in a society where racism has infected so much and where we can hardly escape from the history of it and what it's done, someone saying something that you find offensive doesn't occur in isolation. It reminds you of your disadvantaged position. If you think (quite possibly correctly) that you've missed out on jobs, got a worse education, had crimes against you not be taken as seriously, been harassed by police and/or you know you've been physically attacked and verbally abused, all due to your skin colour, perhaps it isn't so easy not to take offence. I don't think that qualifies a person as a fool.

well said flangellina

'Racism to me is the belief that one person believes themselves superior to another person based on race'

It is much more complex than that. Sorry but apologists for casual racism really make my blood boil. I believe that any kind of racism should be challenged again and again until the people trying to promote it stop.

My dad makes me see red with his attitude about the whole thing 'Oh, it's just a joke' TWAT

Isn't coloured the word American used to describe their slaves and white South Africans used it in the days of Apartheid?
It is an offensive term and shouldn't be used to describe anyone, no matter what their skin colour. I once heard an old lady say it but it isn't a description used in the UK nowadays....is it?!

Also lol @ people trying to justify it by quoting the Bible - what relevance does that really have in a society where many people are atheist and don't read scripture?

Would you tell your child that if they were being called names and bullied at school?

If you think (quite possibly correctly) that you've missed out on jobs, got a worse education, had crimes against you not be taken as seriously, been harassed by police and/or you know you've been physically attacked and verbally abused, all due to your skin colour, perhaps it isn't so easy not to take offence. I don't think that qualifies a person as a fool.

Comfortable middle class women taking offence on this someone else's behalf is laughable though.

Especially as there si no rationale or rigour - what they define as offensive changes every few years with fashion, and the best predictor of the next offensive term is the current most inoffensive one.

so if no offence is intended its wrong to tkae any? So its all ok if I call you racist cunts, because I intend that as a factual statement and in no way offensive.

For anyone still confused as to why we don;'t say coloured, its because it means "anyone non-white". So it groups people into white (as the standard) and not white, as the other, a homogenous mass that doesn't need to be differentiated.

doesn't white and black do much the same, though? in that it ignores all the brown?