To have called this lad "black"...

[ExitStageLeft]

Genuinely unsure about this and need the bluntness of AIBU.

I work at a college, was working with a group of young men and one wandered off. I poked my head back into the office and asked if anyone had seen the missing student. My colleague asked what he looked like and I said:

"He's wearing a denim jacket, got dark rimmed glasses on â?? black lad."

My colleague was shocked I used his colour to describe him.

Totally prepared to be told AIBU...not in the least bit racist and will be quite embarrassed if I've got it to wrong....

GO!

Then I must be a 'person of colour'. That colour is white.

Sorry, windchime, but you are not. It's a term of art, and it means non-white. I'm sure you didn't mean it as such, but your comment could be viewed as offensive to people who consider themselves persons of color.

I think wind chimes point was that 'person of colour' IS both a racist term, and linguistically pretty meaningless.

How is it racist?

You can't divorce the term from its historical and cultural context, which makes it not racist and from which it derives its meaning.

In the UK it would be regarded as racist as it uses the word 'colour'. In the U.S. It's fine. And surely you can't categorically say something ISNT racist just because it has cultural and historical context? I mean every word has a cultural and historical context. Spaz has a fairly benign historical context - as an abbreviation of the word spastic which is a medical term. Doesn't mean it's ok to use it.

I think the confusion of what's OK to say and what's not is due to people mixing the use of 'black' or 'red-haired' or 'with one arm' as a descriptive distinguishing term (OK), with the arbitrary use of racial characteristics when the situation has no relevance to the characteristic (not OK) .

e.g.

1. Can you see those 3 teenaged lads walking down the street? An old lady dropped her shopping and one of them stopped to help her pick it up.

Which one helped? The black lad. the most easily visible distinguishing feature is that helpful lad was black and the other two were white Not racist.

1. I saw a black lad helping an old lady to pick up her shopping.

the boy's racial characteristics here are nothing to do with the incident and not being used to distinguish him from others. His race is irrelevant to the incident. We would equally not say I saw a black lad helping a white lady pick up her shopping Racist

But age discrimination warning. Is the 'old' lady's age relevant to the incident?

"Colored" has a problematical past in the US, too, and yet it was still possible to adopt "people of color" as a positive description rather than describing people by what they are not or by a word that has the connotation of being lesser. The terms previously used were non-white and minority. So the British description BME would be problematical in the US because it uses the word "minority."

And as for it being regarded as racist in the UK, I have seen it used on MN in the respectful context that it is used in the US:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2316090-Feminism-for-women-of-colour

Haffdonga But if the age is irrelevant - both 'lad' and 'old' - then probably their respective sexes is too.... Leading to the conversation of:

'I saw someone help pick up someone else's shopping.'

Accurate, factual & probably leading to a face on the person you're talking to!

My DH is black African and finds the term "person of color" highly offensive but refers to our child as "coloured" (she is mixed) when talking with his family or members of his community ( which can cause a few faces in public) . It just depends on context and who your talking to doesn't it?

Seneca I think that's because the feminist movement about 'women of colour' originates in the States. In the UK black isn't just a descriptor but also a political term, (similar to the in the disability rights movement).

Words do differ by culture for all sorts of reason. I moved to Canada a few years ago and one of the things I find very jarring is the frequent use of the word 'retard'/ 'retarded' both of which I consider incredibly offensive. Here it seems to be (although I'm not completely sure) a more neutral word.

For a time my mother worked in a shop. She and her co-workers would often chat about the customers they encountered. Her colleagues would invariably identify a person's race or ethnicity if that person belonged to a minority group, e.g. "a black guy came into the shop today" or "an Asian woman asked me about XYZ." It never had anything to do with the stories they were telling. So my mother began saying things like "A white woman and her two white children were in the shop this morning." The people she worked with never really understood.

A roundabout way of saying that race can sometimes be a neutral identifier, and it sounds as though that is the case in the OP. But too often it is mentioned gratuitously.

i haven't read all the replies but if calling someone black is offensive then should i be offended if someone describes me as white?? er...cos shock horror that's what i am!!