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AIBU?

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Original poster

To have gone right off Benedict Cumberbatch

529 replies

UsedToBeAPaxmanFan · 27/01/2015 04:22

I read today that Benedict Cumberbatch has had to apologise after using the phrase "coloured actors". Coloured? Seriously?

He did apologise and said that he knew it was wrong, but the fact that it was in his head in the first place is what's so troubling. I am older than him and have always known that "coloured" is an offensive term. Yes, I am aware that it wasn't considered so until the late 60s, but it hasn't been acceptable in his lifetime.

What was he not thinking?

OP posts:
SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 08:53

to all those using the 'it's all such a confusing minefield' - you have now (should you have needed it) been made explicitly aware that 'coloured' is not acceptable. how is it difficult to accept this and remember it? I presume you all wear your seatbelt - or do you leave it off because it used to be alright in the 70s?

I wear my seatbelt every day. However I can't think of a single occasion when I've sued a sentence which required me to think of the PC term for coloured.

In fact what is the pc term?

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 27/01/2015 08:54

Ok well geography clearly not my strong suit...

MrsMcColl · 27/01/2015 08:54

Well, here's another example. I have a severely disabled child. Some people might think of her as 'retarded' (which is another word that's not okay, in case anyone is confused by their 70s upbringing). I'm assuming that most people wouldn't actually use that word. (Or maybe they would, but that's another debate.) But what if it slipped out accidentally while someone was talking? They didn't mean it, it just slipped out. But why did it slip out? Because that's how they think about the person they are describing. Words matter. They create 'togetherness' and they create division.

wobblebobblehat · 27/01/2015 08:54

He made one gaffe and now you don't like him?

Glad you are not my friend. I am always putting my foot in my mouth...

ExitPursuedByABear · 27/01/2015 08:54

But from a language point of view, a person of colour is therefore coloured surely?

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 27/01/2015 08:55

I wear my seatbelt every day. However I can't think of a single occasion when I've sued a sentence which required me to think of the PC term for coloured

Really? You've just read this whole thread and you don't know?

And where do you live that you never have to refer to a black person in conversation?

kim147 · 27/01/2015 08:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 27/01/2015 08:56

A language point of view is irrelevant here.

SlicedAndDiced · 27/01/2015 08:58

In America it's fine to use the term 'spazz' or 'spastic' isn't it, or have I got that wrong?

(Thinking about that news story when I spat out my tea when it said they had made a transformers doll called spastic or something to the effect)

I can imagine there has been a few trip ups there too. It is easy to trip yourself up when you have been brought up to believe one is the right word and one is the wrong word.

I think he just had a mini brain fart personally.

SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 08:58

Is oriental racist too?

It would raise PC eyebrows here. People would also be very confused if you were talking about an Indian or Pakistani person as looking "Asian". Here if you said someone was of "Asian appearance" people would assume they looked Chinese/Japanese/SE Asian.

JapaneseMargaret · 27/01/2015 08:59

It's a great way to derail a debate by picking on a word and not discussing what was said.

Isn't it just.

CFSKate · 27/01/2015 09:00

I don't think it wrong that someone has the word in their head, when I grew up the correct word was changing from coloured to black. I automatically say black, but if I was a few years older I might automatically say coloured. I wouldn't have any more or less prejudice in my heart, I'd just be showing my age by the vocab I learned when young.

There's being politically correct, and there's actually caring.

exWifebeginsat40 · 27/01/2015 09:02

kim147 I would consider the discussion around the inappropriate use of 'coloured' to be of equal, if not more value.

acting is, essentially, learning words and pretending to be other people. diversity in all walks of life is important. acting in and of itself - not so much.

SlicedAndDiced · 27/01/2015 09:02

Surfs it's just made me very embarrassed.

I was trying to describe a lovely lady in college and couldn't remember her name for the life of me.

I'm also ashamed to say I wasn't entirely sure whether she was Japanese/ Chinese.

So in my attempt to describe her I did say 'the oriental lady' Blush

fascicle · 27/01/2015 09:03

DrSethHazlittMD
As someone who works in the acting profession, there is a lot of debate presently about what is referred to as "colour blind casting"

Apparently the use of the word "colour" is acceptable in this usage but not in others.

The two things are completely different. 'Colour blind', as well as being an established, accepted term relating to vision, is clearly, in your example, being applied to a concept where the colour of everybody's skin is irrelevant. It's not being clumsily and inaccurately applied to selected groups of people.

SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 09:04

Really? You've just read this whole thread and you don't know? And where do you live that you never have to refer to a black person in conversation?

Well I did ask earlier but no one answered.

Of course I've used black person in a sentence - I said I can't think of a time when I've had to think of the pc term for "coloured". If I was referring to people or a person of a specific background then that would be the term I'd use, but when trying to make a point that involves all people of non-white appearance it gets trickier.

BafanaThesober · 27/01/2015 09:04

To be honesty, i am sure he is not devastated by the fact you have "gone right off him". And I am pretty relieved that I am not friends with someone who is so blinking judgemental. He made a mistake, he apologised, he no doubt feels dreadful.

I made a comment to my daughter a couple of days ago, here I used a word, that I would NEVER use in conversation, the second it came out of my mouth, I was horrified, I have not a clue where it came from, and I immedialty apologised, I then burned with shame everytime I thought about it for days, and that was in my house, and to my 17 yr old. It was a genuine mistake, I can't imagine how he is feeling, he is just a human, and he is allowed to make mistakes.

And to the poster that compared him to Jeremy clarkson, there is no comprison - there is a man who deliberately courts controversy and enjoys the attention it brings, not the same at all in my view.

TheTravellingLemon · 27/01/2015 09:04

sliced and diced I don't know about now, bit I just watched Gilmore Girls and was Shock at 'spazz attack' and 'spazz out'.

kim147 · 27/01/2015 09:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

exWifebeginsat40 · 27/01/2015 09:06

also, again to the people previously confused who have now been made explicitly aware that 'coloured' is unacceptable - will you make a change or will you use what you always have because you've always used it and it's too hard to remember?

SacredHeart · 27/01/2015 09:06

He has insensitive mouth syndrome.

he also said to his fans, after announcing his engagement, that their wombs would still find a use - boak Confused.

there's only so much that foppish charm can gloss over.

SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 09:08

SlicedAndDiced I don't think Oriental is a problem in the UK is it? I think it's used because the term Asian is generally used to describe people of Indian/Pakistani appearance.

Here we wouldn't use "Asian" to describe people from India etc so Oriental is unnecessary and is considered outdated and overly generalising. My point was mainly that in a lot of cases these words are not really intrinsically bad, but are socially inappropriate for various reasons.

Theoretician · 27/01/2015 09:10

He used a pejorative word in a throw away moment

"Coloured" isn't pejorative, it's intrinsically descriptive and inoffensive. I suspect it became offensive partly by association, because sentences where people felt the need to refer to race were often racist. (One of the official responses to his slip-up from some organisation actually said as much, they praised him for his support of black actors, but gently pointed out that the word "coloured" was no longer used because of it's connotations.)

In the late 60's/early 70's there was the black consciousness movement in which people decided to embrace the word "black", once people were asking to be called black it became wrong to continue calling them coloured. (I therefore think people who were born in the 70's or later never lived in a time when "coloured" was PC, so I'm a bit surprised he used that word, but of course the parents of those children would have used that word, if they hadn't managed to keep up with PC fashion.)

SoupDragon · 27/01/2015 09:11

I don't think Oriental is a problem in the UK is it?

I think it is actually - but I think I only came to know that through threads like this on MN. Describing specific ethnicities/races without potentially causing offence is a minefield I think.

SoupDragon · 27/01/2015 09:13

Coloured was one of the terms used during apartheid wasn't it? Part of me thinks that's why it became offensive.