That consultant said this word...

[Ozwizard]

I went to the hospital to see my results from my consultant. Result of this is that I will have to have surgery that has a six to eight week recovery time. As he was explaining my condition he said that it is very common in " Negroid ladies"!!
The nurse in the room looked at me and shifted uncomfortably in her seat! And I took a second to register if he really did say that. Then I did a nervous laugh and said to him " you must not use that word" he said "what, that is what you are" " what is wrong with Negroid"? I said " stop, use another word". He said " oh I didn't know that Negroid would offend you"
Aibu that he should not have said that word?

FWIW, I tend to think of people as people, and always have done.

However, one thing that does piss me off is certain groups who insist that language has to be changed when the words themselves are neutral. It's the way they are used by people, together with misunderstandings that causes problems.

Before many of you were born, we had a Scottish geography teacher that insisted on calling us 'mistress a, b, c' on the grounds that both Miss was an abbreviation of mistress as is Mrs.

Some years later, there was a movement to introduce the title Ms. Why not insist on being called 'Mistress x' instead as it gives no indication of marital status.

All the fuss caused by a misunderstanding of the English language.

FWIW, I've been treated with enormous politeness and consideration and like something you couldn't bear to scrape off your shoe. In both the country where I was born and where I live now.

I detest casual racism, as much, if not more than anyone I know - especially my neighbours. They all vote for the NF - and if they get in I'll be sent 'home'.

wow we're back in business.

Actually let's not.

[unhelpful post]

As other posters have said, it is a legitimate (though increasingly contentious due to the negative associations) medical term, but your shock was understandable; ditto your request he not continue to use it; & your frustration that he didn't seem to see a problem.

It is impossible for us to guess what exactly what was happening from his side of things: has he just moved to UK & is familiarising himself with terminology/developing fluency (mind you I once had an orthopod get VERY angry because I was doing the opposite of what he wanted... because I was doing what he had actually asked me to do & I'm not psychic...); was he mentally preparing for another question & thrown by your request...?

I think - even the repeated use! - it wasn't done with intent to offend/as a racist act, but it would not be unreasonable to raise his use of the term (& response of nurse & fact he did it again after you asked him not to) & the whole "Mr Right" thing with the hospital's Patient Advice and Liaison Service.

Some of the posts I've read on here have really REALLY shocked me.

I'm really hoping that the person(s) who used "uppity" genuinely just have no idea about the fact that its usage in the U.S. was confined [almost?] exclusively to white peoples referring to people of colour. Generally along the lines of "that uppity n-word". (I find that slur too repellent to write out I'm afraid. It's been bandied about enough that I'm sure you know what I mean.)

As for the whole "white people can't experience racism"... We are not the victims of institutional racism & we are in a position of massive privilege. But that doesn't render us immune from getting 7 bells knocked out of us for being The Wrong Colour. My aunt & uncle's household is the ultimate nightmare of a 1950s/60s landlady: "no dogs, no blacks, no Irish" - they are the triple threat. And when I was growing up & they took me out for the day, we had abuse (& not infrequently saliva, ugh) heaped on us by both black people & white people; though I should add that it was only the idiot white people who seemed to assume my Uncle was kidnapping the little blond toddler sitting on his shoulders excitedly pointing things out/begging to be picked up/holding his hand & talking a mile a minute/stopping crying after a fall when picked up by him (etc etc blah).

I have learned something on this thread. I can honesty say, hand on heart, that I have never known about the racist connotations of uppity. I googled it and lo and behold. So, if nothing else, thanks for enlightening me... not that it was a word I would use regularly, but I wouldn't have given it a second thought previously.

TBF Avon it's much more of an issue in the US than here, but I'd still avoid it if there's any racial context.

Bloody hell - just goes to show that even the worst thread has an upside. Still think MNHQ should take off and nuke the thread from orbit though. It's the only way to be sure.

I HATE this kind of covert racism. Far hgarder to deal with than out and out overt racism IMO

I'm really hoping that the person(s) who used "uppity" genuinely just have no idea about the fact that its usage in the U.S. was confined [almost?] exclusively to white peoples referring to people of colour.

This is incorrect. The word later became adopted as an ironic way of referring to any group that was challenging stereotypes, and mocking the primarily Southern use of the term. This was how it was used in the 70s in the North. Try googling the phrase "uppity women". The U.S. is a very large country. There will be many Americans these days outside the South who will also be genuinely aware of any racist connotations to the word.

Policing innocent usage of the word in the way you are trying to do, especially in another country, where people are very likely to have read/heard it used in this much wider sense, and NOT in its older racist application, is really questionable behaviour, and the sort of thing that alienates genuinely well-meaning people.

Hang on! Uppity is now off limits as well as niggardly?

I've only just got my head around dual heritage!

Picking up on something from earlier on, but that I couldn't see challenged and other people also use

for someone of the negroid sub-species of the human race

There is NO human race. We, current humans all belong to a species - Homo sapiens -. And more precisely to Homo sapiens sapiens (opinions may differ on this, but it looks like Homo sapiens neanderthalensis was another sub-species)

Then there are NO races! Genetically, black Africans are much more diverse than the white population. There is huge overlap in characteristics.
If anything, some conditions are more prevalent in white people, yes.
If the doctor wanted to say anything meaningful he should have specified which African group he was referring to. As I said there is huge diversity and often fairly obvious.
Any classification of humans into these classes (Negroid and Caucasian) is stupid and it's only not worse because Caucasians are indeed genetically closer.
If you feel up to it I'd send him a paper on genetic diversity of humans, particularly in relation to diseases and "races" - a term in really hate because it means fuck all.

I quite agree Lweji. Pedantically, of all the helpful suggestions made of what he said above, the one which wound me up worst was the suggestion of saying "more common in people of African origin" which is incoherent in several different ways.

Infinite Monkey Cage is doing "Race" this week which I haven't heard yet but am looking forward to.

Lweji and Shirley

The thread has already covered the fact that the doctor was foreign (possibly Greek, and that the term Negroid is in regular use as a medical term. If you enter the phrase "negroid gynecology" in Google Scholar, you will find many papers; the top two (in my recollection) were written by doctors with African names working in Nigeria.

I would add that the OP has conceded she was wrong to be offended by the term (although I think everyone agrees that her misunderstanding was entirely natural); her concern, as expressed over the last few pages of the thread was that he repeated it in spite of her telling him to stop.

I admit I didn't read the whole thread, but the part I put in bold was by a pp and really annoyed me. That and the misuse of terms here.

I don't care where the doctor came from (I'm not British myself). He should know that what he said, regardless of the term used and its tradition, was not actually medically correct. There's quite a lot of published evidence for it.
But then he can choose to ignore it or apply it.

And it's a shame that the OP conceded. I think she should be offended for the reasons explained.
Doctors shouldn't go on about assigning characteristics to non existent groups.

Lweji, words are often used in a specialised context (in this case gynecology), even where a different wider usage has been shown to be incorrect. The fact is that there ARE physical differences that are more common to particular groups than others, including genetically inherited diseases. Are you saying that Nigerian doctors such as F.A. Okogbo are racist for using the term to describe a higher incidence of fibroids in a particular genetic sub-group, for example?

And your demand that foreigners who may have only just moved to this country should have the same grasp of all the nuances and connotations of British English that we have in this country is unrealistic and unreasonable.. It displays the same kind of insensitivity to people from different cultures as those who think foreigners will understand them if they just talk loudly and slowly.

For what its worth, I suspect the term probably will gradually stop being used in a scientific/medical context in other cultures as it has done in ours, as long as "of African descent" is applicable, except for very specialised uses such as the forensic identification of skeletal remains.

as long as "of African descent" is applicable, except for very specialised uses such as the forensic identification of skeletal remains.
My point is that "African descent" is irrelevant, including at skeletal level. I explained why in my post.

Even in morphological terms there are no defining characteristics for "Africans" that don't exist in other groups. And there is a greater morphological diversity than in other groups too.

Lweji, words are often used in a specialised context (in this case gynecology), even where a different wider usage has been shown to be incorrect. The fact is that there ARE physical differences that are more common to particular groups than others, including genetically inherited diseases.
Yes, but Black Africans are not a group, hence "negroid" is an utterly meaningless term in medicine.
It would have made more sense if he had said something like west Africans for example.

Are you saying that Nigerian doctors such as F.A. Okogbo are racist for using the term to describe a higher incidence of fibroids in a particular genetic sub-group, for example?
Not racist, but certainly ignorant.

And your demand that foreigners who may have only just moved to this country should have the same grasp of all the nuances and connotations of British English that we have in this country is unrealistic and unreasonable.. It displays the same kind of insensitivity to people from different cultures as those who think foreigners will understand them if they just talk loudly and slowly.
You could start by showing where have I made such demand. I didn't.
But I'd expect medical doctors to be trained and examined before they have to practice in the UK, including on "bed side manners" that are appropriate for the country. That should include appropriate racial and sexual terminology and expressions.

Doctors often need to be educated and I'd think this one does need to.

That isn't wholly true though, Lweji. Yes there is greater diversity between individuals than any group. There are however obvious and distinct differences between peoples of differing geographies. Whether that is evolution, mate preferences, morphological imperatives, etc, such differences exist at wholly superficial levels, such as appearance and genetically, such as predisposition to health issues..

It is difficult to ignore genetic differences with heath implications, however they were caused.

Maybe, once the whole human genome has been studied, we might know some of the whys and wherefores. But that will only happen if acknowledging the differences isn't so frowned upon that such studies never happen.

Lweji Well, I suppose all forensic skeletal medicine papers could be written as "comparing a skull from a person of African descent to that of a person of Caucasian descent" allows us to identify", but it would be very long winded.

But your claim that there is no relevance is simply not true. Skeletal differences exist and ARE used to identify skeletal remains: try looking it up.

The fact that there is overlap between different groupings with regard to any particular genetic or medical feature/problem, does not mean that all groupings are identical. Your logic would prevent campaigns to raise awareness of sickle cell anemia in the group most affected - people of African descent - for example.

YABVU. I am white therefore I'm Caucasian. You are black therefore you are negroid. The consultant used the anthropological/scientific term for your race as the condition is commonly seen in black/African/Carib -negroid women. The term negroid covers all those ethnicities. What would you have him referred your race as? Am I to be offended if I'm referred to as Caucasian.

Get a grip.

It would have made more sense if he had said something like west Africans for example

But only if fibroids are more common only in West Africans ! Or should he have written "in West Africans, East Africans, African-Caribbeans, African-Americans, African-Europeans, and people of African descent living anywhere else in the world"? Perhaps this could be developed into an acronym, to save space?

Oh ffs, its not necessary is it when speaking to patients to capture and convey all the at risk groups.

Give it up lweji, its a waste of your time