To tell friend she she shouldn't use these words?

[Clawdy]

Book group meeting last week, and one group member said she couldn't remember the name of a book she'd thought of choosing, but it was about two coloured girls and their halfcaste children. I said "Anne, you can't use those words" and she said "Why not, what words are you saying I should use?" I said "Black and mixed race" whereupon she said " Well, a mix of black and white is grey, should I say that?" and grinned at me uneasily. I turned away and started talking to someone else. Another member later said I had probably upset her, and maybe should have ignored her comments. What do you think? She was being racist, wasn't she? But I'd never heard her say anything like that in all the years I've known her.

I think the thing that stands out for me is your friend is a smart arse with her retort. same here. If she'd said oh I didn't know that, thanks for letting me know, or similar, then all would have been fine but she doesn't care about her language upsetting anyone. So I wouldn't worry about upsetting her personally.

You shouldn’t have ignored it, though I’d probably have stated it in a less blunt way as “you should probably know that those terms for black and mixed race people are really outdated and could offend people”

It appears that you eagerly jumped on her comment in front of everyone in your book group. Perhaps you were a little sanctimonious, patronising and wanting to signal to everyone how pc you are?

A word in private with her afterwards would have been better.

"Anne we don't use those words" sounds like you're talking to a child.

Dual heritage excludes people with more than one heritage.
I use mixed race to describe myself because my parents are different races.

Mixed race and mixed heritage can be different. For example I wouldn't call someone who has parents who are German (white) and French (white) mixed race, but they are mixed heritage.

Her retort wasn’t great, but many people do react with instinctive denial in the heat of the moment when they’ve been called out in public, even if they really do know that they’re wrong when they’ve calmed down a bit.

The book club has at least two racist members taking full advantage of their white supremacy. What are you going to do about it?
I suggest ‘Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race’ as the next book you all discuss - it might help!

Yeah, my gran is 94 and her new granddaughter in law is black and grans neighbour asked how she felt about it and any future great grandchildren abs was given short shrift. It’s not about age. Maybe maybe she has never been told language has been updated and that’s fine. But when she does fine out she should accept that and change and not scoff and mock.
Ds has a disability which is unusual and has a charming outdated term to describe it. I correct people when they use it and they almost alway get embarrassed for getting it wrong and apologise. You live you learn.

I don't think the intent of racism was there from the sounds of it, but you were right to say something. Both of the terms your friend used have fallen out of use because of the implications behind them so your were doing her a favour by telling her lest she accidentally offends or upsets someone.

I know from experience (growing up in a town with a pretty much 99.9% white population and yet still a lot of racist people who'd likely never met a black person in their life and them moving somewhere a lot more multicultural) that it's a bit embarrassing when you say something outdated or offensive and someone pulls you on it, but it's better than the alternative of actually upsetting someone. It took me a while before I could just say 'thanks for telling me - I didn't actually know that'.

And before certain posters start it's not about banning words and living in fear of offending the woke or whatever is about understanding the meaning and the weight of your words and making a decision about whether of not you're still comfortable using them once you know how it could make others feel.

She is in her late sixties, but she was a primary school teacher for many years, and nobody would have used the word"halfcaste" in a staffroom, I'm sure.

I know people in their 80s who wouldn't use those terms. She's doing it deliberately. Good on how for calling it out.

Agree with PP, her pushback when you corrected her suggests she knew exactly what she was doing - especially the little "white and black makes grey" quip, sounds premeditated rather than just roll off the tongue in the instant. It's also totally dumb as white people aren't actually, you know, white in colour 🤦.

You were 100% right to correct her, ignore the second lady.

I think it's good that you didn't ignore. "We mustn't use those words" might not be the correct way to phrase things though as it suggests that given the choice you might use them.
The grinning etc would put me off. A person who genuinely didn't know would apologise and correct their words but considering it's been the norm for 20 plus years, I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't know.

I would have pulled her up on the words she choose to use as they are very outdated now and are offensive.

My son recently pulled up someone we know when they used the term ‘half caste’, the person was so apologetic and didn’t know that they were using a outdated term that they had been told as a child.

If a friend or someone I knew reacted the way the woman you know did I would be distancing myself from them.

Why was she upset? Because you corrected her? Because you told her she couldn't use outdated terms for people? Because she's an entitled twat and no one tells her what to do (given her twattish response)?

She's unreasonable and ridiculous for being upset, no matter the reason you pick. You did nothing wrong.

I think her original comment was ignorant but he follow up retort definitely marks her as racist to me. Anyone who was simply ignorant would have apologised.

You were of course right to challenge, and agree with a pp suggesting Reni Eddo-Lodge as your next book club author.

She unintentionally used terminology now determined to be racist (assuming that she is not racist and this was terminology she grew up with). The black and white =grey comment sounds like someone embarrassed in public due to being called out publicly. I guess you could have taken her aside later and framed it more as a "noticed that you said x and y, I realise that you didn't mean it that way but I wanted to let.you know that those terms are now considered racist, you should use a and b, I just didn't want you to get labelled as racist when that is not what you are".

Unless she is 20 something and no excuse for this ignorance?

I think you might have got a better response if you didn't carry on like she stepped on a landmine when she got it wrong.

You could have easily reworded the sentence - "oh I remember/ donk know the book with black girls and the mixed race children ... " instead of exposing her ignorance for the whole table.

And then if she continued on with the same language you could have been a bit more forthright.

25 years ago I referred to someone as 'half caste' in school because that was the term my parents used at home. Some of the other children were a bit shocked, and the teacher saw that I was confused and explained to me that it wasn't a word people used anymore and might hurt people's feelings. Since that absolutely wasn't my intention, I was embarrassed, apologised and asked what I should say instead. I was ten.

So while I do find it odd, to say the least, that this woman was apparently unaware of this before now, I do think 'you can't say that!' isn't a good response. Nobody likes being told what to say. Either she was genuinely unaware and needed more explanation, or she knew but didn't care, in which case just telling her not to will make her dig her heels in.

If we don’t pull people up in public on using racist / homophobic etc words then they continue to believe it is acceptable and only a few ‘lefty’ people object. You did well OP - I know from personal experience it is difficult to stand up and say this sort of thing. Those words have not been acceptable all my life and I’m in my 40s. She was being a racist and needed correcting.

I think we need to stop policing people’s language. I can see in 10 years people being offended about the words “black” and “mixed race”, then coming up with new phrases. Most brown and black folks aren’t troubled by this language. It’s mostly white people tripping over themselves to not offend. I’m sure they don’t look at ways to be inoffensive to white people!

The context and how she said those words needs to be taken into a count. It doesn’t sound like she meant it in a bad way. To be honest, you’re never going of please everyone.

"Mixed heritage" sounds much broader than "mixed race" to me. A child can have two parents of the same race, but with very different cultures and traditions. Race is only one component of a person's heritage, and if it's the component you're talking about, why not just use the word?

Although those words are outdated, I think that it'll always be problematic to jump in and correct someone's language use in front of others. It shows them up and most people would get defensive in that situation to be honest, especially if the people in the group aren't that familiar with one another.

If she's a retired teacher, there is very little chance she doesn't know she shouldn't use that language. If not, she needs educated. If she has dementia then she may have an excuse.
She's racist, pendantic, exercising white privilege and is also showing herself to be incapable of putting herself in the shoes of others.
I would always have a word with someone who used that kind of racist language. Hopefully she will think before using it again.

I thought "BAME" was no longer used? I would have found it annoying and embarassing to be told publicly "you can't use those words" and-more to the point- not likely to encourage me to change- and I too see her response as embarassed and defensive. She appears to have meant no harm and neither did you but it seems to me that you could have handled the situation better. But there you go hindsight is a wonderful thing.