AIBU to ask how "coloured" and "of colour" differ?

[JohnAndMichaelsSister]

I've hesitated all day before posting this, because it's a sensitive subject and I don't want to offend anyone. But I need to know the answer, so as not to unintentionally offend anyone in future!

I turned on the radio this morning (Today on Radio 4) to hear that the FA chairman Greg Clarke has had to resign for using the term “coloured footballers”. Then Dame Heather Rabbatts, in talking about it, used the phrase “person of colour”.

How can “coloured” be offensive and “of colour” not be?

To me, logically, both seem offensive. Both imply that to be white is “the norm”, and lump together everyone else in the world who is of any other colour as somehow departing from this “norm”.

And any physicist will tell you that white is formed by combining all the colours of the spectrum, while black is an absence of colour. So actually it's white people who are coloured!

Yet for a while now we have been told that “... of colour” is the correct term for everyone who isn't white.

I'm in the UK, but I know that in the US the main organisation that campaigns for the rights of black people is called The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

So I'm totally confused. I'd like some guidance (especially from black British people - I'm white) on what is offensive and what isn't.

YANBU = “coloured” and “of colour” are as offensive or inoffensive as each other.
YABU = there really is some difference between the two terms.

Jesus, MN has made me cry, time for a break from it.

@Aoki

On an individual basis, most people would generally prefer being acknowledged for what they are depending on the situation: black, Chinese, British etc. The only bit that is specifically complicated in my mind is the term 'Asian'. In the rest of the world, Asian is used to refer to East Asians (Korean,Chinese etc). In the U.K. it is used to refer to people from India and Pakistan. I think we are an outlier in doing this and it really would make sense to convert to the global use of the term. Telling an American or Australian or Canadian that you are 'Asian' if you have Indian ancestry is very confusing.

But what makes the rest of the world right and us wrong? are Indians not from Asia? If we want to be 100% correct then both sides need to acknowledge that whether Chinese or Pakistani or Indian etc all are from the ‘Asia’ continent and should be referred to as such. In the meantime, the U.K. is no more wrong than the rest of the world.

Europe is part of Asia too you know. Just a mountain range dividing Europe from Asia and it’s not as big as the Himalayas that divide Asia from India. Which is why India is technically a subcontinent and Europe is not.

@HeIsAVeryBadBoy I never used the term 'indigenous' and never would.

And those 9999 people would be incorrect. The first known Briton was in fact Black.

TBH i don,t the disability view really works. I have dyslexia so tehirfore I am dyslexic. But we all have a colour so are we all coloured? So therefore what is the point of the word. I have mixraced family. (not black though.) I would never call them a person of colour. I would say their race.

@pinkearedcow I stand fully by what I said but do not want to derail this thread. My family experience and opinions are as valid as yours and we disagree on a fundamental level.

Europe is part of Asia too you know. Just a mountain range dividing Europe from Asia and it’s not as big as the Himalayas that divide Asia from India. Which is why India is technically a subcontinent and Europe is not.

Europe is part of Asia? And India is not in Asia? The Himalayas?
Apart From your confusing post which isn’t making sense, what has any of that got to do with the point I was making as to the disparity between how the U.K and rest of the world describe Chinese/Indian/Pakistanis?

But this is where it’s s complete trip wire @MelCMel. I completely understand why you’re angry and sick of it but surely it’s more offensive to completely ignore someone’s ethnicity in the example of describing the only black man in the room?

‘Ah Richard, yeah he’s the black guy standing on the left’, person goes and sees Richard. If I said ‘ah Richard, yeah he’s the guy on the left, you know the one with the green shirt, no not the small guy, he’s the tall guy, he’s got black hair and he’s talking to Amy, yeah the small girl with the blonde hair. No on the left, in the dark green shirt. Yep that’s right’, I’d expect that person to think I was either racist or terrified.

OMG you are my DH we had this EXACT conversation today with our son - right down to white being a colour and black being an absence of colour. He is not a physicist. I have obviously waffled on too much about 'seen that on MN' and he's joined up. Don't think much of your user name dear, your siblings aren't called John and Michael and you'd be a brother anyway.

Aside from that - I too want to know the answer - which is why we asked our son - he's a teenager and knows everything

[quote CheetasOnFajitas]@pinkearedcow I stand fully by what I said but do not want to derail this thread. My family experience and opinions are as valid as yours and we disagree on a fundamental level.[/quote]
I don't want to derail either.

Yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, has differing experiences, and will look at things from different perspectives. But you were bloody rude in your response. Maybe I am being over sensitive today.

If anyone wants to know more about the social model of disability:

www.scope.org.uk/about-us/social-model-of-disability/

Will stop the derail now, sorry all.

I'm pinkearedcow btw, was trying to stop myself posting with that name change. Didn't work!

What is always abundantly clear on these threads is the sheer proportion of people in England who live in a white bubble. Stories of their DC describing the one Black child in their class, or their one Black colleague etc. Its cringe. To then have no idea how to interact with people or speak openly without "tying themselves in knots" which is basically just another term for white fragility. It's all about the white person's discomfort about what language to use, with little thought towards the Black person's discomfort at a lifetime of racism and what their experience of being the only Black kid in the class must actually have been like!

It's such a shame and I long for the day that the market towns and villages are more diverse. People are starting to move out of cities due to lockdowns, so perhaps this day will come quicker than we thought. America will soon be over 50% Black or mixed race and hopefully England will follow.

tories of their DC describing the one Black child in their class, or their one Black colleague etc. Its cringe.
Why is a fact "cringe"

didn't say that you did @CarouselRider

I was talking about indigenous in response to another poster's point about using the BIPOC label.

You came back to me on that point to tell me that 'The first known Briton was in fact Black. Etc.'

Don't want to split hairs, but everybody knows that indigenous populations refer to 'First Nations' people. Contemporary cultures of people with long traditions, customs and languages within that place.

Britain has no black indigenous cultures. Britain's deepest indigenous cultures are descended from the caucasian tribes that arrived here thousands of years ago. Their customs, oral histories and languages live on.

Cheddar Man's DNA roughly aligns to middle eastern today as pp said. But aside from that, his lineage has no surviving cultures, traditions or languages in the UK.

It’s not about ‘white fragility’ in the slightest. It’s completely and solely about me not wanting to offend and disrespect anyone.

The tying themselves in knots is cringe. Though the fact that some areas of the UK are so unfriendly to Black people that only one is in a class/only one is in a company, is rather cringe as well.

The first known Briton was in fact Black.

Not ethnically black no. Only similarity is skin colour which doesn’t by itself denote ethnicity. Journalists made that claim based on the fact that Cheddar Gorge man had DNA for dark skin. The DNA however is of Middle Eastern ancestry and his blue eyes trace back to Spain. You can’t confuse a European human from 10,000 years ago as having any ethnic relation to today’s subsaharan black people.
Many media sources published pictures of the model with filters to darken the skin. Here is the unretouched photo.

@DynamoKev

tories of their DC describing the one Black child in their class, or their one Black colleague etc. Its cringe. Why is a fact "cringe"

Agree. Also if you're white it goes to show you're equally as 'white fragile' why do you need more black and ethnic groups in villages and market towns? Why does it matter what the mix is? Do people of say Nigeria say 'we need a more white mix?' no. If colour truly doesn't matter surely you're being the 'fragile' one by stating you really hope there will be more black people in villages just so a majority white class doesn't have only one black child in it. My dhs friend lives in a black African country for a while and schooled there (dad oil worker) he was the only white kid around and frequently was referred to by his ethnicity.

SimonJT I wasn't aware of the other comments he had made. I no longer feel sorry for him.

squirrelslikenuts. Glad to see you came back.. Did we help?
Yes, thank you.

Blueberries0112. it's a old outdated term ... but they just decided not to change it .
Thanks for this explanation re the NAACP

If colour truly doesn't matter surely you're being the 'fragile' one by stating you really hope there will be more black people in villages just so a majority white class doesn't have only one black child in it.

If you are a decent human being you would hope that this black child doesn't have to carry on being the only black child in their village. And colour matters because people make it matter (people who treat you differently because of the colour of your skin, better OR worse treatment) and because there is NOTHING WRONG with having brown skin, in fact it is beautiful and children with brown skin deserve to have that recognised.

Being the only white person in a situation is very different. I have been that person; I had power, money, backup, medical care, which my neighbours didn't have. Even if you personally have no more power than your neighbour (as would be the case for the child) the whole world revolves round white = powerful, black = powerless and you have that backing.

If you can't see this I am not bothering to argue more.

The term ‘coloured’ has historically been used in a derogatory fashion hence now being unacceptable. Person of colour focuses on the person in the same way it’s kinder to say ‘person with autism’ rather than ‘autistic person’ iykwim.

@drspouse

The tying themselves in knots is cringe. Though the fact that some areas of the UK are so unfriendly to Black people that only one is in a class/only one is in a company, is rather cringe as well.

WTAF? There are fewer Black people.

According to the government -

according to the 2011 Census, the total population of England and Wales was 56.1 million, and 86.0% of the population was White

People from Asian ethnic groups made up the second largest percentage of the population (at 7.5%), followed by Black ethnic groups (at 3.3%), Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups (at 2.2%) and Other ethnic groups (at 1.0%)

If everyone was spread evenly, there would be even less than one black kid in each class.

As for the contention that the only barrier to black people being found outside big cities is racism - whilst undoubtedly a factor, that is also incredibly over simplistic.

A slight tangent, I know, but I had to smile at this quote from Malcolm M. He may have been considered controversial by some, but he'd surely got a point:

"When I'm born I'm black, when I grow up I'm black, when I'm in the sun I'm black, when I'm sick I'm black, when I die I'm black, and you...when you're born you're pink, when you grow up you're white, when you're cold you're blue, when you're sick you're green, when you die you're grey and you dare call me coloured"

@Paintedmaypole

I did feel a bit sorry for the football official. He was actually speaking about the discrimination and abuse black players face and how unacceptable it is. He looked like an older man who had used outdated language inadvertantly. Use of language and what is considered offensive changes all the time. In the context of the question he was asked he would have had to use some term such as black, mixed race or Asian, people of colour, etc in order to answer. He chose the wrong term but I don't think he was intentionally othering anyone or meaning to be offensive.

The main point for me is why is the FA is run by old dinosaurs like him in 2020. There are no BAME people in the hierarchy. There are very few BAME people in football management. There seem to be few BAME match officials.

Racism remains a serious problem in our societies, as we see from both police victimisation of black people in the US and Islamist murders of white people in France.

One of the problematic issues about tackling racism is that ‘acceptable’ terminology to describe non-white groups in predominantly white societies constantly changes. A cynic might suggest that the purpose of such changes is to catch out, publicly shame and humiliate decent well-meaning people who are trying very hard not to offend anyone but may not be aware of this week’s ‘correct’ words.