Was I unreasonable to correct this?

[PablosHoney]

I work for a school and a student came in today to make a statement/report about a ‘coloured girl’ her mum had told her to come and report the incident so I presume it was maybe mums words? I didn’t tell her off I just said that it was a word we don’t use any more and to leave it out of the statement. Was I wrong?

It was probably considered rude by white people but did anyone ask black people what they thought?

Do you know the answer to that charlestonchaplin or are you just being goady?

I’m not telling ‘my friends’ anything of the sort?? This is a forum on which I know nobody and I was asking a question 🤦🏼‍♀️ I didn’t say she was racist! Dangerous words to be stuffing in my mouth, it’s an old fashioned term that is out dated. Ffs

t is all so confusing. I know an elderly man who was disaplined at work in the 1960's for using the term black, coloured was the correct term then, now it's the opposite. The reality is we are all coloured or of colour. I am pink with brown spots (freckles) but officially I'm white.

It is so depressing to see a bunch of (presumably) white people bemoaning the fact that they might be slightly inconvenienced by changes in racial politics that have occurred over a period of more than half a century.

isn't the correct term 'girl'? Why do you need to specify colour/race at all? They wouldn't come in and complain about a 'white' girl.

I’ve never known the term black to be offensive to black people so I don’t know where this idea of ‘black’ being offensive has come from. I can only imagine it has come from well-meaning white people who neglected to ask black people what they thought.

I don't understand the logic that it was 'an older persons words'. Children are told what language is appropriate. For adults who are unsure of terminology, it takes mere moments to find out what the correct form is.
I don't see what is so radical about using consideration.

Did you give her an alternative?

This can be seen in the case of the term 'black' which was introduced in America by black people to describe themselves, and has subsequently been discarded in favour of 'person of colour', seemingly now succeeeded by 'coloured'.

This is wrong, so wrong Teacher22, and anyone who has taken the trouble to read the thread should understand how wrong this is if they are a person of normal intelligence. It’s so wrong it’s like an attempt to smear black people as difficult. Just call black people black but, oh no, the habitual grumblers keep coming out with the old line that the acceptable term keeps changing. Maybe white people don’t know what to call black people, but black people have always known that they’re black and considered black.

@FelicityBeedle
You're thinking of person of colour. That's the phrase being used now but coloured is absolutely not acceptable.

Referring to all 'non-whites' as "brown" pp... sounds hideous to me - how can everyone else fall under a blanket of one colour. I understand it can be 'tricky' (especially as a dual-heritage/Eurasian/Chinese-English/mixed-race/british-Asian person)

What MrKlaw said...

Was the girl black? I've never heard of coloured being used for black. I've only ever heard it used for Asian or mixed race. I think you may have inadvertently changed the meaning of her statement .

I cannot see the difference between coloured person or person of colour.Why do we even worry or care about the tone of someones skin. I am not white, maybe pink or beige, I got very confused at work, working with british people with different skin colours, and folk born in different countries. Most were happy to be called black, although in fact none of them were.

I'm not sure what the correct term is at the moment. Is it "person of colour"? Is "black" acceptable? Not being funny, I'm genuinely not sure.

You say this is a genuine question, but use the phrase “correct term at the moment” as if it’s always changing, and one simply just can’t keep up with the whims of that particular group.

Can you imagine the responses if a guy came on here and said, genuine question but what am I allowed to call women at the moment. Can I pat them on the bottom and call them love? This liberal far left agenda....blah blah blah. But I guess that’s different, huh?

There is always dissent among any group about how they prefer to be treated or referred to, because everyone has their own experiences. To use a thread like this to do “sigh, well what do we call them shows such an ignorance.

There may not be one universally acceptable thing to do in any given situation, but there is pretty much always a universally acceptable wrong thing to do. Trying to pretend there are blurred lines is a shitty thing to do.

I cannot see the difference between coloured person or person of colour.

You don’t need to see the difference. You just need to know there is one and it matters.

OP, presumably if you work in a school there will be a policy or procedure for how to deal with this. I wouldn’t have thought MN is the best place for advice on it.

I've never heard of coloured being used for black

It has always been used that way.

It has always been used that way
Not where I live and not anywhere I've worked either.

If you're reporting an incident surely you should report it exactly as it happened, exactly as the very first reply on the thread stated. "I received a complaint from X student who said she wanted to make a report about "a coloured girl" (her words)" - this could be important if the incident could have been racially motivated or come across that way so yes, YABU to edit her words.

Thank you Alan I had hoped the OP would get there on their own
It's so important to record facts not opinions

RTFT that is all

It is not a term I would use and I have never heard it used in the UK, but I noted that Meghan Markle described herself as a person 'of colour' which is similar.

In South Africa 'coloured' or 'Cape coloured' refers specifically to the mixed race community who have European, Khoi, Xhosa and South Asian ancestry.

I wish ppl would RTFT and stop berating the op for altering the statement.

I’ve lived in the US and the UK back and forth over forty years. In that time it has always been consistently true in both places I lived that:

• it’s fine to say black. If you ever read any newspapers or any magazines, or listen to or talk with a diverse range of people about this subject, it is pretty obvious that there’s nothing whatsoever rude or offensive about ‘black’

• It’s not fine to say coloured, and anyone making any sort of effort to keep abreast of social change since the 1950s would have naturally picked this up too.

People of colour, women of colour etc. is a more recent good alternative

I honestly think the ‘it’s so complicated’ stuff must be in bad faith, or a sign of wilful ignorance/residence in a bubble.

Black people describe themselves as black. We have Black History Month etc not 'coloured/people of colour/ brown/ any other adjective history month.' When teaching things related to BHM, no black student has ever taken exception to the term 'black'

Only on MN will you get a white person correct a black African on what something a black African is called in South Africa 🤣