Stop teaching child that it’s okay to refer to someone’s skin colour

[CannotThinkOfName]

Calling someone - a random person you don’t know - black is racist. I don’t care if your personal friend or your family member or someone else you’re close to doesn’t mind being referred to like this because they’re speaking for themselves as individuals.

Pointing out someone by skin colour is rude at best and at worst a form of racism. This is because

1. Skin colour that I was born with is brown.
2. Skin colour that I was born with does not define anyone. It doesn’t define your traits, characteristics, hobbies, goals, ambitions or anything else that truly defines who a person is.
3. It’s a form of racial harassment to start bothering someone at random and bringing up their race and colour for no real reason and singling them out by it.

I’ve seen people say there’s nothing wrong with their child referring to people by skin because they are just “saying what they see”. This is wrong because as a child, I never ever saw myself as “black” or described myself “black”. This is taught as a way to refer to people, it’s not simply a child “saying what they see”.

Please stop teaching your child that it’s okay to refer to people that you don’t know this way. If you do know someone and they’ve told you to call them black then that’s their choice as an individual. They don’t speak for anyone else but themselves.

If you don’t know someone’s name, - just ask them what their name is and call them by their actual name. Not “that black girl” or “the black woman” or “that black lady”.

@SrownBkinGirl

Children do say what they see and would typically say brown or dark (or variations of it) unless the person's skin colour is dark enough that the child actually sees black (the colour, not the race) or the child sees anything darker than tan as black (again, the colour, not the race) or the child is colour-blind and any brown skin looks black to them. In that case, they'd say black. I think it isn't racist to use skin colour that way as a descriptor. *@Smeds*

I think what the OP could be saying [I could be wrong] is that children are taught to say Black (the race, not the skin colour] when they see a person with brown skin and this is what is racist.

Yes exactly @SrownBkinGirl, children are literal and they would usually say brown or dark skinned

@CannotThinkOfName are you seriously comparing the term black to b*tch? I actually find that really offensive. Why are you so offended with the term black? I'm black and I would question anyone that refuses to acknowledge that! Do you have an issue with who you are?

Interesting thread, OP.

I’m white. The other day a friend was talking to me about an actor in a TV show. She described him based on a storyline that happens to him in that show (‘he’s the one who…’) and I immediately said ‘oh yeah, the black guy’. Then I wondered why I’d said that. I knew who she meant from her description and I know I wouldn’t have felt any need to say ‘oh yeah, the white guy’ if it had been any other character. It just highlighted to me how in my head ‘white’ still is a default and anything else needs to be commented on.

I do think there are times when skin colour needs to be part of a description, like when reporting someone missing or describing a suspect to the police, and I’m not sure how you can do that without saying ‘black’ unless you substitute in something equally contentious. But I do notice that in my predominantly-white social circle and indeed in wider society, ‘black’ regularly gets used to describe people where ‘white’ would be assumed as a default and never mentioned, and I think that’s very telling.

In my DS class there are two boys with the same name. One is black and one is white. They are described that way. It's really not racist at all. It's just a description.

@CannotThinkOfName What would YOU like us to tell our children to use then?

When they innocently ask why does that person have a different colour face then me etc.

Children use innocent descriptive terms that can in fact be offensive unknowingly. Would you prefer to leave children using offensive words inadvertently or give them a widely accepted word to use such as black?

Or do you expect me to stop ever non white person we ever meet in the street to ask them what description they would like and expect my child to remember all of these?

If I’ve understood correctly I think you mean that describing someone as black is or can be offensive because it is a constructed term, and not actually describing their skin colour.
So in the situations mention above would it be appropriate to describe people as ‘The lady over there with brown skin’? rather than ‘the black lady’, as one is a description and one is a label?

It's obvious where the Chinese, Indian and Spanish ladies are from

Is it?

Show me someone who insists they can always and reliably distinguish an Indian from a Pakistani, a Chinese from a Korean and a Spaniard from a Portuguese and I'll show you someone who's almost certainly lying

@FromMumToMeAgain

So in a predominately Black or Asian Country or community, how would people describe a white person then?

White! OP is being ridiculous. I'm a black African and the OP does not speak for me. Why is it wrong to acknowledge race? I am who I am and I am proud and absolutely love it!

@fulanigirl I explained that a few pages back.

Question for you, what do you think of Lupita Nyong’o and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saying that they were surprised when they went to America and they were told they were black for the first time ever. They both said they had to learn what being black meant and Chimamanda in particular said she wasn’t born black, she had to become black later on in adulthood when she moved to the US. Do you perceive them too as having an issue with what they are and do you honestly believe that black is a term your ancestors would have used in Africa to describe themselves as and not their name or ethnicity?

If YOUR child referred to a white person as something other than white in ignorance would you correct them and say that person is white? What’s the difference?

Children describe by physical characteristics to narrow down what they are referring to. So in a crowd of mainly light skinned people, they will identify a darker skinned person by reference to skin colour.

However yanbu that "black" isn't the literal term children use. They say brown. They also don't distinguish between the skin colour of, say, a dark skinned person of south Asian descent and a person of African descent. Both are simply "brown". In the same way that someone with red hair has "orange" hair.

@Marelle

"Where are you really from?" is a) pig ignorant I’d presume they were doing a poor job of asking which country your family was from before they lived here. It could be phrased better but I don’t think it’s rude to ask that? I get asked that all the time because my name is stereotypical of a particular country but I don’t look or sound like I’m from that country.

Anyone who hasn't lived under a rock for about 20 years or isn't a flag carrying racist ought to know that "where are you really from" is unacceptable.

If they really want to know about your heritage there's a way to do that but that isn't it. I'm quite surprised you're OK with this tbh.

But surely our colour is part of who we are, so if we say we don't see someone's colour, aren't we missing a huge part of "them?"

I have brown skin, that is factual, not racist.

@CallmeHendricks And if we don’t see someone’s colour how to we tackle the massive inequalities associated in being that colour?

As a midwife how can I argue the point that black women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women if I can’t ‘see colour’. Without colour this statistic becomes meaningless and the inequalities continue.

Do you have an issue with who you are?

Cmon, this is a tired line at this point. As a Fulani (I assume by your name) girl, I'm sure you know 'Black' isn't "who you are" or who your ancestors are (What does that even mean?) but it's fine if it's who you identify as.

When I was assisting the police in identifying someone the words they repeated back to me to repeat the person I saw were: white male approximate height 5' 8" etc
Notice they used the word WHITE
OP you are being ridiculous.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

It's obvious where the Chinese, Indian and Spanish ladies are from

Is it?

Show me someone who insists they can always and reliably distinguish an Indian from a Pakistani, a Chinese from a Korean and a Spaniard from a Portuguese and I'll show you someone who's almost certainly lying

Read down and you'll see another post stating it's not about assuming random women are Chinese or Indian. It's about the hypothetical (actual) Chinese or Indian or Spanish women in the quoted post. People are missing the point of the quoted post.

OP, why are you the judge and jury on the language everyone else should use?

[quote CannotThinkOfName]@fulanigirl I explained that a few pages back.

Question for you, what do you think of Lupita Nyong’o and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saying that they were surprised when they went to America and they were told they were black for the first time ever. They both said they had to learn what being black meant and Chimamanda in particular said she wasn’t born black, she had to become black later on in adulthood when she moved to the US. Do you perceive them too as having an issue with what they are and do you honestly believe that black is a term your ancestors would have used in Africa to describe themselves as and not their name or ethnicity?[/quote]
Lupita and Chimamanda are both Africans in America. They know where they are from, they know they're history. They spent a huge part of their lives in Africa where they have the same skin colour as most of the population. African Americans don't have that, most of them don't know where they are from. They have developed a whole entire culture that different from most Africans such Lupita. You cannot compare. So yes, it's different. The fact that you compare being called black and a b*tch just says so much about how you actually view yourself. You do not get to speak for others and pretend skin colour does not exist.

@CannotThinkOfName

“I do not think that referring to someone's skin colour is racist”.

It’s racist. It’s just that it’s a form of racism that has been normalised. People need to quit it.

We have read many, many books to our children for BHM in school. Books that have been recommended by black and mixed race people. They talk about different skin colours, black and peach. Is it racist to call someone peach?

@Marelle

"Where are you really from?" is a) pig ignorant I’d presume they were doing a poor job of asking which country your family was from before they lived here. It could be phrased better but I don’t think it’s rude to ask that? I get asked that all the time because my name is stereotypical of a particular country but I don’t look or sound like I’m from that country.

I struggle with this. My students are from, quite literally, all over the world. I love it - I get to learn lots. Often when we're chatting I'll ask "what / where is your home country?"

But worry about that phrasing?

@SrownBkinGirl

Do you have an issue with who you are?

Cmon, this is a tired line at this point. As a Fulani (I assume by your name) girl, I'm sure you know 'Black' isn't "who you are" or who your ancestors are (What does that even mean?) but it's fine if it's who you identify as.

Exactly what I said

Umm, as a mixed race person with a mixed race family I'm personally far more concerned about being told to 'go back where I fucking come from' or my child being told they are brown like shit and smell like it too. I'll save my anger for real racism, thanks! BTW my granny insists she is a coloured lady and is offended by any other description. I dont listen to her nonsense either. This is a majority white country so being non white stands out. The reverse is true if you are blonde, female and travelling around India, so I'm reliably informed.

You would hear 'the white lady' as a descriptor in a room full of black ladies though?

And how often will this happen though?

It is correct that white is considered the default, read any book. Characters are mentioned by their hair or eye colour only when they're white, but someone from an ethnic minority would have it spelled out or have an ethnic name.

Or the number of times I've heard someone comment on a white person's partner 'oh I wasn't expecting them to be (insert ethnic minority)' because the person in question is white. And yes it could happen the other way around too but seeing as 86% of the population is white, this is the context in all of the times I've heard it mentioned.