Is the phrase “woman of Colour” still acceptable?

[Whatjusthappenedthere]

I’m confused, Amber Rudd caused uproar when she used the out dated and now racist term “ coloured” when referring to Diane Abott recently. I grasp why this term is now no longer used BUT yesterday on Woman’s Hour the term “women of colour “ was used in a positive way and this is acceptable.
Any one able to explain ?
I’m genuinely concerned as I brought up in a home where “passive” racism was the norm. The N word was occationally used but not in anger or violence. The local shop was called by the P word. I remember once being asked to see the head master at school in the 1980’s because I had used some racist language and I was honestly dumbfounded as I had no idea what I had said.
I work very intimately with the general public but not in an ethnically diverse area so when I do spend time with someone who is not ( and even here I’m struggling to find the right term) white, hope that’s ok , I’m really nervous of saying the wrong thing.
Can any one explain the right terms to use?
I still struggle to refer to people as Black if required as that was the one word I did here in the 80’s that was often followed by some other derogatory term.
Help. I just want to get it right.

Causcasian has not meant white forever in the UK at all. It’s an Americanism used by American police. It also makes no sense because it’s named after the Caucasus which are a small number of countries surrounding the Black Sea, many of which are in Asia. It has nothing to do with people of north west European descent.

It sounds ridiculous and reminds me of that godawful reality cop show ‘Cops’ from the 90s. I hope it doesn’t catch on here.

I'm in my 50s and was taught caucasian was the grouping for white people at school (UK). It's not something I would use now and haven't for many years, I'd say I'm white, but we were taught at school it was the grouping for white people. It's probably very dated now.

I think - emphasising the word 'think' - that Asian can mean different things depending on where you are from. Asian to British people means Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi while for Americans it might mean Chinese, Filipino, Japanese.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

The link explains that originally Caucasian related to the skull shape of people from caucuses and had nothing to do with skin colour so Caucasian people could be anything from pale to dark skinned.

It was the Americans who changed its meaning to skin tone and made it white people. It’s American English. Maybe your teacher had been watching too many American cop programmes too?

Also, wtf is an 'unmistakable African accent'?

Note that I didn't say THE African accent. I appreciate that it's a huge continent, but there are (at least to a British/European ear) a lot of distinctive facets to pronunciations and intonations commonly used by many people from a number of countries across the continent. I would say the same about South America, North America, South-East Asia, Scandinavia, the Baltic States etc - there are, of course, many differences, but to an outsider, there are also distinct similarities.

I agree with PPs that 'Africa' is used as a lazy default far too often. Not to be flippant, but whenever they have world geography rounds on Pointless, huge, highly-populated African countries will invariably score very few points, along with tiny, relatively remote island nations and much of Central America. I know it's a UK-based programme, but I wouldn't say the same is true to nearly the same extent of much of South America and Asia.

A lot of people in the 'West' have very poor knowledge of African countries and would doubtless struggle to find any non-coastal African country or city on a map. Maybe it's used as a shortcut: instead of saying "She's from Liberia." "Where's Liberia?" "It's in west Africa." - people anticipate the likely response question and just go straight to the answer.

It's not right at all, but I suppose there are certain countries that have forced themselves and their culture/language on most of the world, meaning that they are much more (in)famous throughout.

It's a very valid point, though.

Unfinishedkitchen, perhaps I was taught the words caucasian, mongloid and negroid. I don't know what lesson that would have been in, probably biology. As a result I've always linked the word caucasian with white people. I've never used the term - and definitely wouldn't use the terms mongloid or negroid. This was school in the 1970s in the UK. I've never heard it used by Americans and would have no idea of how they use it. All I was saying was somehow I, and another poster upthread, thought the say thing. It was taught in the UK.

You said "Causcasian has not meant white forever in the UK at all." I responded to that and told you why I and presumably the person upthread take caucasian to mean white. Obviously being taught this in the 1970s in the UK isn't "forever" but at one point it definitely did mean the white race in the UK. I've no idea if it came over from the US, was just saying to me and another, rightly or wrongly, it meant the white race in the UK and was taught to me at school - even if it can mean people with a darker skin as per your Wikipedia link. You made it sound like it's never been used here before - how would I and the other person know it if it hadn't been taught?

It seems like Amber Rudd knows as much about the preferred terminology as Dianne Abott knows about maths!

I think it can be a tricky one. Obviously some words (the n word being a prime example) are just not acceptable, but there are some who prefer other terms the the generally accepted ones. For example, I used to work with a black woman who found the term "black" quite offensive, although it does seem to be the preferred terminology at present. She preferred to be known by her ethnic origin. So it's not always straight forward.

And if you happen to come from an area which is not particularly diverse then it can be the kind of thing that isn't an issue, until it is an issue, if you see what I mean. For instance, my grandparents lived in an area where there was one non-white family (they were of Pakistani origin). There are also some Eastern European seasonal workers. But really, in their day-to-day lives it was just not really something that my grandparents or their friends had to consider very often, if at all, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that most (or all) of them would have used a term or description that could cause offence. And not because they are all extremely racist, or even causally racist (they would have been mortified to have offended or upset someone by using a term that was deemed racist)- it's just not really something they would consider that they needed to keep abreast of, if they even thought about it at all.

Yes the man I was talking about was fromAfrica he was from Nigeria. We were talking about his amazing unusual name and I mentioned it was possibly an African name because he is from an African country. I didn’t think that was racist, was it?

Hugely outing myself here but here goes:
I say I’m a WOC because I’ve got an oddly mixed heritage:
Father was a Parsi
Mother was from N Africa
And I grew up around SE Asia due to my parents jobs at the time.
So I’m lots of something but not one of anything.

I’m with you @doireallyneedto (hope this tags you, I don’t know how to do it properly!) I also find it weird to refer to people as coloured or “of colour” as it makes it sound like white people are the blueprint and anyone else is different or not the norm. I too am beigey/peachy coloured.