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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:
CFSKate · 27/01/2015 09:16

Say I needed to describe someone, and I need to say they looked Far East Asian. Can I say that or is it offensive, and if so what should I say instead? ISTR reading that it was wrong because it was saying Far East in relation to Europe, therefore Eurocentric.

Mintyy · 27/01/2015 09:17

"If anyone is deeply upset or offended by him simply using the wrong word and then apologising profusely for it, they are just looking around for something to be offended by. The intent behind a word has more to do with it than a word chosen in error."

^ This. I just get incensed by this sort of thing. Anyone who has "gone off" BC because of this is a twat afaic. Offensive enough for you?

SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 09:21

But so was Black Soup.

GraysAnalogy · 27/01/2015 09:21

No-one has yet explained why person of colour is okay but coloured isn't.

Mintyy · 27/01/2015 09:22

It's so obvious ... he was on an American chat show, he was intending to use the correct US terminology "people of colour" (which you certainly don't hear often in the UK) and it just came out wrong!

Dear God, I'm not a BC fan at all, but the rushing to be offended is utterly tedious.

MrsPeterQuill · 27/01/2015 09:22

I understand that black is now preferable to 'coloured' but what is actually so offensive about coloured? It doesn't have the same connotations as the n word does it?

My DM is from London and now in her sixties. As many others have said before, when she was younger, the polite term was coloured and calling someone black was actually quite derogatory. Obviously she never got the pc memo, because she was still using coloured up to about 15 years ago.

3littlerabbits · 27/01/2015 09:24

To me saying that someone is black when describing their skin colour doesn't sound nice - is that stupid of me? If describing someone where skin colour would help in differentiating I say has African heritage or Indian heritage or similar. Does that sound ok? Coming from a pretty much completely white monoculture I didnt really pick this up when younger, apart from the n word obviously from TV.

kim147 · 27/01/2015 09:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

3littlerabbits · 27/01/2015 09:26

If he had said with coloured skin would that have been ok?

SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 09:27

Say I needed to describe someone, and I need to say they looked Far East Asian. Can I say that or is it offensive, and if so what should I say instead? ISTR reading that it was wrong because it was saying Far East in relation to Europe, therefore Eurocentric.

In Australia we would never talk about the far east because Asia is not East of us. It would sound old fashioned and a bit colonial maybe?

If you were talking about Far East Asian then I'd assume you were just talking about the countries that are at the most Eastern side of Asia.
If you're in the UK then none of this is really a problem for you AFAIK.

VeryMessyHair · 27/01/2015 09:28

I feel sorry for him.

VeryMessyHair · 27/01/2015 09:28

I feel sorry for him.

exWifebeginsat40 · 27/01/2015 09:29

poor old Ben, eh? at least he has people second-guessing what he MEANT to say.

he used an offensive term. it has been explained why it is offensive. it is up to him, and to all of us, to 'keep up'.

whether you accept it or not, the use of 'coloured' is outdated and offensive. will you continue to use it despite this being explicitly explained?

SurfsUp1 · 27/01/2015 09:29

No-one has yet explained why person of colour is okay but coloured isn't.

It's just social norms as far as I can see.

Still wondering what the PC term for coloured is though!? ANYONE?

YonicScrewdriver · 27/01/2015 09:31

What Mintyy said.

SoupDragon · 27/01/2015 09:31

But so was Black Soup.

Yes but, IIRC, "coloured" referred to those who were not white and not black. Black was "reclaimed" as proclaiming their heritage but "coloured" was neither one thing nor the other.

I guess the why doesn't matter. If I am told a term is offensive by the people it affects, so be it.

VeryMessyHair · 27/01/2015 09:32

I think dual heritage sounds ridiculous.

What would you say to a 70 year old woman who calls herself coloured? I wouldn't describe her as coloured because I know not to but that's what she identifies with.

GraysAnalogy · 27/01/2015 09:32

That isn't really good enough though is it, do you think, because they're both the same thing worded differently.

I can't see how one can be so terribly offensive and racist, yet the other is deemed the term of the moment and used extensively in America and online.

I'm just ranting at anyone really because society is bloody stupid enough to accept that as a phrase in the first place. Grin

SoupDragon · 27/01/2015 09:34

What would you say to a 70 year old woman who calls herself coloured?

What people call themselves is none of my concern.

YonicScrewdriver · 27/01/2015 09:34

Ex, most posters agree it was the wrong phrase and BC agrees with you too. So I'm not sure what you are getting at with your "oh you are all going to carry on using it"?

SoupDragon · 27/01/2015 09:34

Still wondering what the PC term for coloured is though!? ANYONE?

Surely it is simply "non-white"

kim147 · 27/01/2015 09:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GraysAnalogy · 27/01/2015 09:37

is up to him, and to all of us, to 'keep up

I understand this but what if you have little social interaction, or the social interaction you do get doesn't include the latest acceptable terminology Hmm

I was recently schooled by mumsnet because I used a word that had always been acceptable to me and my circles. I was very thankful to the posters who told me, but without them Id never have known.

It doesn't help because Ive read that mixed raced isn't acceptable, yet my friend describes herself as mixed race. So if I had not read about the term I would have thought that was acceptable.

Someone needs to run a Twitter account. 'This word now in'.

kim147 · 27/01/2015 09:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CaptainJamesTKirk · 27/01/2015 09:38

No-one has yet explained why person of colour is okay but coloured isn't.

I think it has already been alluded to but in the USA and SA there were 'coloured' water fountains, 'coloured' seats on buses etc... And hence it is ties very closely to inequality. We did not have that here. Having said that I'm not sure why 'people of colour' is acceptable?

He has apologised. He used what is now an unacceptable word (especially in the USA). But I have heard American actor use 'spaz' and 'retard' and not feel they have to apologise when interviewed on UK television, even though these are highly offensive terms here.

He made a mistake. His apology is sincere. He referred to himself as an idiot and said he had no excuse. Give the guy a break.

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