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”.

It seems like we're talking about different situations here though. OP, you've suggested that people use your name but that doesn't help me identify you. If I've never met you before and someone told me to look for the "Helen", how would that help me find you?

Obviously if someone's talking to you you wouldn't expect them to say, "Hello, Black Lady" instead of your name but a physical description of someone is literally the definition of "othering" because someone needs to point out what is different about you to the other people you're with. Skin colour being used this way is just one of those physical descriptors like tall or short and, as other people have argued, avoiding saying black or white when it's the most obvious way to differentiate someone in a group seems odd.

Thinking about it more when I was in school, mainly black school in SE London, people always referred to me as the “Turkish girl” (people that didn’t know me in school) despite being mixed black and white 🙄

@CannotThinkOfName But children can be curious and if we're being completely honest children will come out with random questions and will use all sorts of descriptions it's not always about asking someone's name as that may not always be possible and doesn't help the fact that as you say individuals can choose for themselves. Just look through this thread and the majority of women who are black have no issue with being called black when being descriptive.
Many years ago I was labelled the white girl at work on a shift as I was the only white person when I could've quite easily been referred to as the regular member of staff as all the rest were agency or bank it didn't bother me.

A question for the OP.

You're in a room with tnineteen other women, all black except one white woman, all are wearing an identical dress, all have black hair, similar style and brown eyes, all similar height and weight.

Someone asks you to verbally describe the one white woman in the room. How will you do that without describing her as white and when you do, are you being racist?

In places where dark skin/black is the majority then I would assume that phrases like 'the white lady' would be common in helping identify who is being spoken about. It's the stand out descriptor, hopefully devoid of judgment.

@liveforsummer I once had a very amusing situation at work like that. I saw on an email that a woman had started at my office with the same name as a girl I went to school with. I asked someone who worked in her section what she looked like to work out of it was the same woman. My God the lengths she went to to describe her without using the word “black” - we were pretty much down to show size by the time I asked “is she black, only the one I went to school with was born in St Vincent”.

My son is ginger. He knows he’s ginger, but when people go to insane lengths to describe him as anything other than ginger it gives him the impression there is something wrong with his hair when he doesn’t feel that way at all.

@Goldbar Noticed that in Harry Potter. Angelina Johnson was always 'the black girl'. Nothing else. Everyone else had more adjectives to describe them.

oh dear

are you white?
so far I've not come across one black person who had an issue with being referred to as black.

facts are not the problem. you are being ridiculous

@liveforsummer

My black ex and his mates always used to laugh at how (white) people will in a really long winded way, try so hard to describe someone without using their skin colour, when by just saying the skin colour would have identified them immediately. It was a long standing joke so your view is not held by everyone.

I acknowledged in my OP that people might have friends or family or S.O. who tell them it’s okay to refer to them as black.

It doesn’t change the fact that black is a term that was imposed on people of African descent (who are actually brown in skin tone) and it became accepted, mainly because of Americans and African Americans don’t know their specific ethnicity. People here tend to follow a lot of what Americans do so as soon as African Americans became black, so did everyone else of African descent, whether they wanted to be called black or not.

Strangely, Indians, Arabs and other Asians can also be brown and very dark skinned yet it’s never acceptable to refer to them as black, only people at some kind of African descent can be referred to as such.

Random, mildly connected point: I know Americans who thought Nadiya Hussain was black and couldn’t believe she was Asian because of her skin colour.

@Goldbar

Around here (London), 'black' would be a fairly poor identifier in many cases.

I imagine for people who live in areas of the county where it's a good identifier, it must get very wearing always to be referred to as the 'black' one. "Oh, this is Louise, she likes gardening", "Oh, Sam is the one who's a lawyer".
"Oh Anna, she's the black one".

I've never used it or heard it used in that context. If someone you know is jumping from hobbies/jobs to simply black, then you have bigger issues with them than the fact the use the word black.

@DecadentlyDecisive

Given that all I seem to get rammed down by my throat these days is -

"Black Lives Matter" or
"Black males are unfairly targeted by stop & search" or
"BBC boss offers to meet black executive after claims he was blocked from job"

It's not unreasonable for me to refer to Black people as Black.

Rammed down your throat? Really? Your arseholery is showing.

But isn't the intention / circumstance the most important thing? I am not rascist and I call black people black. I'm in my 40s. I have been taught that it is ok to say black people, so that's what I say. My intention is not rascist.

except there's no nationality called Black. It's obvious where the Chinese, Indian and Spanish ladies are from. What about the Black lady?

Are we confusing ethnicity and nationality though? Someone could have a Spanish nationality but be any ethnicity. I know someone who was born and raised in Nigeria, they are Nigerian by nationality, but they are "white".

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.

Yes. No argument from most people there I imagine.

Calling someone - a random person you don’t know - black is racist.

Well I respectfully disagree but you are entitled to that opinion.

You say you have brown skin. I have pinky beige skin, also known as white.

If I were the opposite side of the room from you and everyone else in the room but me was brown skinned, how would you refer to me, should you be required to?

@Goldbar

Around here (London), 'black' would be a fairly poor identifier in many cases.

I imagine for people who live in areas of the county where it's a good identifier, it must get very wearing always to be referred to as the 'black' one. "Oh, this is Louise, she likes gardening", "Oh, Sam is the one who's a lawyer".
"Oh Anna, she's the black one".

It's a good point.

Being black in a part of a large town or city with a significant black population is a very different experience from being the only black person in a town.

Which is partly why BAME people understandably struggle with rural places, which which I don't blame them at all. I'm white and the whiteness in the British countryside is one of the main reasons I'd never move there.

If you’re a “black lady”, then that’s all you are, ethnicity or nationality apparently don’t exist for “black ladies” but it does exist for Chinese, Spanish and Indian ladies.

Genuine question - what if people are all the same nationality, but of different ethnic backgrounds? We live in a very diverse American city, but most people are American-born (unless they're immigrants like me). Are you comfortable with terms like African-American or Asian-American? White people here aren't referred to as European-American, just white.

How do you describe a description of someone unknown to you in an emergency?

I wonder what you think about women of colour referring to themselves as women of colour.

Do you think they are racist for calling themselves whatever they are comfortable with?
On whose behalf are you so offended?

so far I've not come across one black person who had an issue with being referred to as black.

I don't agree with the OP that calling someone black is racist but I've seen a few people say this quote. There are, in fact, Black people who'd rather not be called Black and since the OP says she's black (no reason to doubt or troll hunt), then I believe you've seen one today.

I'll be honest, this thread will eventually get full of comments from racist posters ,end up in a bun fight and get very upsetting for the people OP is trying to "protect". It always ends that way . So one might wonder if she really is that naive.

This is absolutely ridiculous. What a world we live in nowadays

Honestly the poster who said skin colour isn’t genetic is insane. It’s hereditary, of course it’s genetic. Otherwise how do you explain black parents having black kids and white parents having white kids?!

Well I passed a group of boys earlier playing football. The goalie missed and was referred to as the fat, white kid with ginger hair. Several of the boys were not white.
Were they racist??

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone teaching their kids to call people “the white man”. Race is only acceptable to mention, from what I’ve seen in real life if you’re pointing out that someone is black. I’ve never heard people point out someone is white before. Could be just me though.

I’m not sure that’s always true. Generally speaking I do agree that race is mentioned when the race isn’t white but as a descriptor of one person amongst a group of people then whatever is distinguishing is referenced.

For example, if you say to someone “you need to speak to Dave, he’s over there.”
And the person says “which one is Dave” your reply will depend if what distinguishes Dave. If Dave was the only black person in the group, you’d say that, but if he was the only white person, you’d say that too. Or if he was the only one sitting down, or the only one with a beard, or the only one holding a cup of coffee. When you’re describing one person out of a group, you use the thing that will distinguish them, in group of people where half were black and half were white, you wouldn’t describe Dave using his race, whatever it was. But if it was a group of men, similar ages, all in shirts and ties all standing round in a group, and all were white except Dave (or all black except Dave), it would be unusual to come up with another descriptor - “oh Dave? He’s the umm third tallest guy over there”

Exactly. If you’re a “black lady”, then that’s all you are, ethnicity or nationality apparently don’t exist for “black ladies” but it does exist for Chinese, Spanish and Indian ladies.

Is that better? Because I’d hazard a guess that plenty of people described as “Chinese” based on looks alone are in fact not Chinese at all. Or even have Chinese ancestry. And they quite possibly don’t appreciate the many countries in East Asia all being seen as “Chinese.”