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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

646 replies

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 25/02/2012 19:05

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 Shock at the way he described her?

OP posts:
PeppyNephrine · 28/02/2012 16:06

And your point? Of course you don't mention someones skin colour unless its necessary.
But then in your opener you said you describe people as "the fat one" so perhaps you're not interested in social niceties?

OriginalJamie · 28/02/2012 16:19

Ming

Oh well done. I expect you feel all glowing at being able to make that joke. Well done!

Pendeen · 28/02/2012 16:36

perceptionreality

Would you like to sanitise all books for any offensive material?

Would you ban Mein Kampf? Because that is really offensive?

PeppyNephrine · 28/02/2012 16:38

Banning Mein Kampf is analagous to removing the words "nigger" and "sambo" from new editions of Enid Blyton?

You want to rethink that?

Pendeen · 28/02/2012 16:39

No of course not.

Do you?

perceptionreality · 28/02/2012 16:39

Well, yes - there is no place for racism in a children's adventure story. Wouldn't you agree?

sozzledchops · 28/02/2012 16:43

Perception - I don't think they should change books to make them more PC. If they don't think the wording is suitable for today's children then they should just stop printing the book. I hate the idea they will take a book written in the time and change it. You can always use it as a way of talking about how things were in the past and how views and thoughts have changed.

perceptionreality · 28/02/2012 16:43

Everyone knows Hitler was an evil cunt, so, hardly surprising his use of words is offensive.

Children's books need not to contain offensive language - it has no place there whatsoever.

OriginalJamie · 28/02/2012 16:44

Oh I've never heard such tripe Pendeen.

Pendeen · 28/02/2012 16:47

Read what perceptionreality actually said, read my questions and then think about it.

Pendeen · 28/02/2012 16:48

That was for PeppyNephrine BTW

OriginalJamie · 28/02/2012 16:52

Pendeen

Er, she never said anything about banning, and then you did, using a spurious comparison. That's what's I read.

PeppyNephrine · 28/02/2012 16:53

I read it, I still don't get your analogy.
Mein Kampf, a book every knows is written by a genocidal giant of history, read by (few) adults in context.
Enid Blyton books: badly written tosh for children that are now reprinted with a few changed descriptions because no-one really likes to read nigger-stories to children.

Its not exactly sanitising content to change a couple of words that people find completely non-u, but if you're arguing against it, you can do so. You analogy was shit though.

OriginalJamie · 28/02/2012 16:57

I've come to the conclusion that anyone who uses the term PC is a bit of a twat, who wants to argue the toss about their right to use terminology that reveals themselves to be even more of a twat

Pendeen · 28/02/2012 17:01

" You analogy was shit though. "

Charming. I see that your ability to reason and debate is fairly undeveloped.

If you still cant understand, then so be it.

seeker · 28/02/2012 17:07

The whole point of Mein kampf being available in it's original form is so that people can read the words of a racist, genocidal monomaniac. Unless I missed a meeting, this is not the purpose of Five Go to Smuggler's Top. The analogy falls down at this point.....

PeppyNephrine · 28/02/2012 17:16

Well, you're not explaining yourself, and it seems no-one else has understood your enlightened point.

I'm guessing you are arguing that books shouldn't be rewritten from a modern understanding of language? Thats a sensible argument, if thats what you;re saying. But your linking of Enid Blyton and Hitler was, indeed, shit .

So do you want to elucidate or are we all to guess?

Whatmeworry · 28/02/2012 21:16

your hyperbolic shreiking makes you sound hysterical, if not unhinged.

I had to laugh at that, when the only one shrieking hysterically and insulting people is you. You have called me a moron and a tool so far, and your justification is that I "deserve it" because I disagree with you. Accusing me of your own activities is hyperbolic in the extreme.

Sometimes you use words that have changed meaning and it makes you seem racist or perhaps just old fashioned.

Rot - Political Correctness is a "holier than thou" game where words are redefined fairly often, randomly and capriciously to bolster the moral superiority of a small "in-group" of Anglo-American liberal intellectuals and is hung onto by their sheep acolytes without thought. It's just a form of jargon, so one can define an in-crowd and an out-crowd, and it has to change all the time so the in-crowd can stay in, and there is alawys an out-crowd to condemn.

Predictably therefore, when challenged you are unable and unwilling to define the words you consider Non PC (in case you mark yourself as Not In-Crowd anymore), or to give any reasoning for deeming them as such (apart from "we say so, so that's that, and here is a website that agrees with us") or to defend your arguments - apart from "how dare you challenge me - you are a twat/moron/tool/ etc".... the typical arguments of a faith based construct.

But, it is perfectly possible to be against Political Correctness and still not be racist, just as it is perfectly possible to be Christian or Muslim without being a Fundamentalist, or Feminist without being a MN RadFem. PC is not against racism per se, that is not its aim - it's aim is to prove its adherents are superor to all the other ordinary peope and are "More Not Racist than Thou".

The word you have been frothing about on this thread - coloured - is a case in point. The people on whose behalf you are ostensibly Offended - (US, South Africa) do not see it as offensive, and the word you prefer - "black" - was rather amusingly once deemed Offensive when Coloured was not, has now been switched, and even now is not seen as particulally racist - as many have testified on the thread. Nor is it particularly popular with UK citizens who are neither black nor white. Not only that, you go into this ludicrous parsing dance wherein "coloured people" is deemed Racist but "People of Colour" is Not Racist. When you get to these levels of semantic hair splitting you know its farceland

However, PC - especially the MN Frothworld brand - is always bipolar, wherever it occurs. I'm Right Because I Say So, and You're a Twat if You Disagree. The mindset is very simplistic, probably due to the simplistic minds involved.

scurryfunge · 28/02/2012 21:19

Wow, you really don't get it, do you?

seeker · 28/02/2012 21:23

Whwtmeworry- you haven't answered my question- why won't you use the word "nigger"?

PeppyNephrine · 28/02/2012 21:29

Uhuh. That took you a loooong time to think up a riposte didn't it?

You're wrong.
You know you're wrong.
Everyone else knows you're wrong.
You're talking bullshit to cover your embarrasment at being so utterly, obviously wrong.

Lots of buzzwords but you're not actually saying much of anything. Inventing a brigade to be against, must be tiring to be you.

dogscatsandbabies · 28/02/2012 21:32

Don't you hate it when you miss the early part of a thread and you would like to reply to the ORIGINAL issue but when you read the last page just prior to posting you realise discussion has moved on 20 fold (a bit like Chinese whispers, oh shit, is that Asian whispers these days??) and your point is no longer relevant.

pocketlibel · 28/02/2012 21:55

I have seen the gentlest, kindest older lady pulled apart by a gleeful gang of PC mafia for using the word 'coloured'
What I found particularly amusing is that she is far more decent to other people than that gang of harpies who, quite frankly, make me embarrassed to be a woman
And yes, there is a big difference between a kind old lady using the term 'coloured' and someone using the word 'nigger'
I should know

igggi · 28/02/2012 22:12

No sure what your point is, pocketlibel.

lambethlil · 28/02/2012 22:17

Sometimes you use words that have changed meaning and it makes you seem racist or perhaps just old fashioned.

Rot - Political Correctness is a "holier than thou" game where words are redefined fairly often, randomly and capriciously to bolster the moral superiority of a small "in-group" of Anglo-American liberal intellectuals and is hung onto by their sheep acolytes without thought. It's just a form of jargon, so one can define an in-crowd and an out-crowd, and it has to change all the time so the in-crowd can stay in, and there is alawys an out-crowd to condemn.

Over-reaction much.

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