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.

I've just come back to my laptop, to see this huge number of posts.

First, thanks for all the really helpful replies, especially about historical reasons for the difference. It is a minefield, because what one generation are taught is right, the next are taught is wrong. I'll continue to avoid both “coloured” and “of colour”.

Opening poster, have you asked your black friends what difference is? They may explain it best
No, because I've lost touch with them since I gave up work and one moved away. I could email, but as this thread has proved, it's a difficult question to ask!

If the OP really wanted to know and not stir things they could have just Googled
The only people stirring are the very few people who have gone in for flaming. I came to MN because I wanted to ask what people thought. I never even thought of Google.

Why on earth in this day and age we all have to be catalogued by our skin tone, race or religion is beyond me.
I agree, totally, but skin colour is just one more superficial characteristic that can be used when describing someone.

@JacobReesMogadishu

It’s interesting. I did see he said that he’s lived in America for quite a while and that over there saying coloured and person of colour is more common. I’d personally never use either in this country though imagine aware of it being used n America.

I’D thought that coloured was out of favour even in America but I did see a black person being interviewed on cnn the other day who described themselves as coloured. 🤷‍♀️

O think what he said was that “of colour” was what he was asked to use in America, then he went in to say something about stumbling over his words. The implication was that in his haste to remember to us the preferred US term he mistakenly said “coloured” instead. I think that is plausible but where he let himself down was by not realising immediately what he had said and why it was important to correct it/apologise. He even refused to own up when challenged and said something like “ IF I said that I apologise”. And I think that was because he didn’t actually understand that “coloured” was offensive. Which is why he absolutely had to go. To my mind his comments about how all the Asians work in IT were just as offensive.

Glad to see you came back.
Did we help?
People are people whatever race or colour they are. Treat everyone as you would want to be treated - with respect & no presumptions.

@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 problem is, @Paintedmaypole, that the guy was not just some older bloke chatting casually. He was a senior representative of a nationally significant organisation with a huge number of black and other minority ethnic players and fans and he was speaking to a parliamentary select committee on the subject of racism in Sport. He would have been fully briefed yet he still made an unforgivable error and didn’t even notice or own up to it when challenged.

@pinkearedcow

As for the OP's question - as others have said, it has been known for a very long time that coloured is not acceptable and it speaks volumes about a person's attitudes if they still use it.

But OP didn’t ask if “coloured” was offensive. She knows it is.

She asked why “person of colour” is acceptable in some contexts and sometimes the preferred term requested by certain black people.

I am not sure about this. A person who has for,, example paraplegia, is a person with paraplegia not a person with a disability. They aren't disabled because of their condition, but because the world is not designed in a way that takes into account their needs. Therefore they are a disabled person, because barriers (building design, lack of accessible transport etc) disable them.

What a load of bollocks. My brother is paraplegic. Even when he is gliding around in his wheelchair in his fully adapted kitchen with every mod con within arm’s reach from a sitting position he would still consider himself disabled because, you know, he can’t fucking walk. Or feel his own bladder.

[quote CarouselRider]@squirrelslikenuts agree with your comments.

However, Black people have been born here for many more centuries even than you suggest. The Roman Army consisted of soldiers from Africa who settled here during the building of Hadrian's Wall.

And if you want to go back even further, @HeIsAVeryBadBoy then Cheddar Gorge Man was black. That's 10,000 years ago. So basically, Britons were black from the outset.

@alexdgr8 I'm 99% sure you are stirring and know full well that "oriental" is as outdated and offensive as "coloured" is.

I'm always surprised and disappointed at the faux naiveté on MN, and the number of people who are "confused" by language and terminology evolving, say, every 30 years or so.

If the OP really wanted to know and not stir things they could have just Googled.

[/quote]
Isn't this rather missing the point.

I imagine few are unaware that there have been some black people in the UK from very far back. However, the numbers generally were very low, to the point that if they stayed here and intermarried they would be completely subsumed into the larger population. The Roman legions were hardly majority black.

Many people living in the UK in the first half of the 20th century would rarely see a non-white person. The main exceptions would be people in some large cities.

@alexdgr8

apparently it is rude to say oriental to describe someone in america. they say asian, and that is ok. can anyone through any light on this. could lead to difficulties for british in/ talking to america.

It’s rude everywhere. HTH.

@DonaldTrumpsChopper

I distinctly remember sitting in a lesson at secondary school being taught that "coloured" was the correct term to use, and if we said "black" we were racist.

Mind you, we had our doubts about this terminology even then.

My Dcs and their friends (we live in a very multicultural area) tend to say "black" or "brown" for skin colour, or country of origin for other stuff.

i am 58 and remember being taught the same. The polite way was "coloured" and definitely not black. This was in the UK so I don't know if it was different elsewhere, but children were taught in my school most definitely NOT racist, but the term used was coloured. I obviously don't use that term now, but I can't change how it was taught in the past.

It is fascinating how language evolves though, we don't use "Queer" anymore (or indeed "Gay" so much) It is now LGTBQ.

i had no idea that oriental was rude here as a description.
how long has this been the case.
why do some people insist i am not writing in good faith. surely discussion is how we all grow in ideas / knowledge.
one person on here whose husband is from the far east said he had no objection to the term as a description.

so i am wondering if this is a recent development, or come from america. why is it offensive, it just means eastern ?

And if you want to go back even further, @HeIsAVeryBadBoy then Cheddar Gorge Man was black. That's 10,000 years ago. So basically, Britons were black from the outset.

While Cheddar Gorge man had dark skin, he was not of the same ethnicity as today’s SubSaharan black people. His genome is actually of Middle Eastern ancestry.

@alexdgr8

i had no idea that oriental was rude here as a description. how long has this been the case. why do some people insist i am not writing in good faith. surely discussion is how we all grow in ideas / knowledge. one person on here whose husband is from the far east said he had no objection to the term as a description. so i am wondering if this is a recent development, or come from america. why is it offensive, it just means eastern ?

“Eastern” isn’t great either. “Oriental” is rooted in colonialism and suggests a viewpoint that is western-centric. It is fine to us it for rugs and vases but not for people. The fact that the speaker uses one generic term for a wide range of ethnicities suggests that he she thinks they all look the same and is too lazy to think hard enough or ask what the person’s actual ethnicity or culture is. (South East) Asian is also a bit lazy in that regard but it is more acceptable because is a geographical descriptor.

Oriental is just old fashioned and has slightly sleazy World of Suzie Wong undertones. You can just imagine some old bloke saying “Ooh yes my grandson has a lovely oriental girlfriend, very pretty eyes” The pp’s husband has the right to call himself whatever he wants but I think from her post he is probably older and was probably simply relieved as long as he was not called something even more overtly racist. I can tell you straight that my British Chinese friend in her mid-forties finds the term “oriental” offensive.

"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."

it's a old outdated term and considered racist when white people use it (like this, I can call myself deaf without offending myself but other people can sound offensive ) but they just decided not to change it .

Beside, using the term colored has always sounded like it is white vs. colored . we a shade of color too. So why are we using it?

Here is interesting article
www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/30/295931070/the-journey-from-colored-to-minorities-to-people-of-color?t=1605146704851

“A little research into early sources turns up "An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves into any Port or Place Within the Jurisdiction of the United States" (signed in 1807), which applied to "any negro, mulatto, or person of colour"

“1797 survey of the population of what is now Haiti described three classes of people, including "The class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of colour, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks."

“The adjective form — "colored" — we hardly need the OED to confirm, but it says the term is now:

"Usually considered offensive ... Coloured was adopted in the United States by emancipated slaves as a term of racial pride after the end of the American Civil War. It was rapidly replaced from the late 1960s as a self-designation by black and later by African-American, although it is retained in the name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In Britain it was the accepted term for black, Asian, or mixed-race people until the 1960s."

YANBU, the whole thing is getting ludicrous now. If a person does not like being referred to as black, or brown, or coloured, or anything else, they only have to open their mouth and say "please don't use that word to describe me... I prefer [insert preferred word]". Any reasonable person will do their best to comply.

I don't particularly like the term white being used to describe skin colour, as it is just inaccurate in most cases, unless applied to albino people. Perhaps fair skinned is a better term... or colourless! Then all the white people could complain that they've been labelled with a term which implies they are bland and boring.

Words themselves aren't inherently good or evil, much depends on the context of what is said, and whether it is said in a friendly, polite way, or in a snide, provocative way.

The BBC has put up an “Explainer”.

Greg Clarke: Why FA chairman's comments are so offensive
www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-54888197

It goes through all the history that has been mentioned above for both terms.

I only heard the term POC for the first time last year and until this incident I had only come across it being used by Americans. Apart from Zuby stating that he did not like the term and would not use it.

I was really surprised to see all the media bods in the UK claiming that they understood perfectly well to use POC when I have never seen it mentioned in recent discussions about BAME vs BME vs “Neither please”.

The BBC article ends by referencing various UK sources and my reading of it is that neither “Coloured” nor “People of Colour” are recommended in the UK. Happy to be corrected if I’ve misunderstood.

So far, in all the news broadcasts I’ve seen about the Gregg Clarke case, everyone has managed to avoid uttering the phrase, ”Footballers of Colour” - phrases like ”black players” tripping easily off their tongues. Not one of them seemed to notice they were doing that.

I’ll just be pig sick on principle if we are being bounced into yet another encroachment of US linguistics and culture. There was an example recently of a UK job advert for a UK organisation included a “Diversity Statement” mentioning inclusion of “Indigenous People”. Who were they thinking of? Picts???

My black boss and other black colleagues say “black”. So I use the term black. I would not used coloured because it’s dated ls except you are right to reference the naacp. It is a minefield

@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.

But that wasn't the only shitty thing he said - he also referred to being gay as a lifestyle choice and was offensive about women footballers.

I am also white so not sure if I am allowed to have an opinion but I hate the term "of colour". It lumps everyone who is not white into one category as if they are all the same. And it also sounds really mealy-mouthed. What's wrong with saying someone is "black" or "Pakistani" or something more precise?

@madmarchmare

Look Up Steven Pinker and the Euphemism Treadmill

Great article. I've often thought about that myself.

@garlictwist

I am also white so not sure if I am allowed to have an opinion but I hate the term "of colour". It lumps everyone who is not white into one category as if they are all the same. And it also sounds really mealy-mouthed. What's wrong with saying someone is "black" or "Pakistani" or something more precise?

Oh, please have an opinion. This isn't a criticism of you, but I'm not fond of this current climate where people feel they have to apologise for being white.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who acts like a racist should apologise. I don't see why anyone should have to apologise for their ancestors, or for being born with white privilege. We should all be judged for our own actions - whatever skin colour you have, you didn't choose it. The only thing you can choose to do is to be aware of racial inequality and stand up for people of other races if you see anyone trying to attack them unfairly. You don't have to personally suffer racism to know it's wrong and to have an opinion about it.

I prefer accurate terms if you know them - I think the issue is when people cannot accurately identify someone's race and don't quite know which generic term to use whilst causing the least offence. It can be tricky as well when people are mixed race and might strongly identify with one race or no race.

The think the issue with ‘being precise’ is very often people aren’t and can’t be as they don’t have that information to hand. So we go back to skin tone being off the table as a descriptor unless there is literally no other characteristic to describe someone by.

@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.

Is he age also an excuse for his sexist and homophobic language? He said being gay was a life style choice when asked about homophobia in football, he also when asked about female footballers said there aren’t as many because they don’t like beinf hit by the ball. He also said being South Asian causes you to pick a career in IT