to wonder why people still use this word.

[Creepycrawler]

Half caste

My children are mixed race and my son when to his friend's house for a sleepover last night.
I was chatting to the mum when she used this term about another boy who '' is half caste as well''. Luckily, my son was in the car and didn't hear.
I was recently in hospital and having a conversation with someone who also used the term and I excused myself to go outside and sat somewhere else.

... And it's not just here. Several years ago H' s (Nigerian) aunty visited from Africa and used the term. We were both very uncomfortable and H told her we don't use that word.

Do people really not understand that it's offensive?

There is still a lot of racism where we live now (South Wales) and we get a lot of it at school ( where I work). I don't think this woman made the comment intentionally but surely people know by now not to use it?

To quote a recent Guardian article by someone who describes herself as "mixed" but rejects the term "mixed race":

Many mixed people don’t like the term “mixed race”: it conjures racist ideologies of “race mixing” and the “one-drop rule”, and I can see that. But for me, “mixed”, (without the “race” part), is the best of a bad bunch. It feels rounded enough to avoid further interrogation and it helps to quash any bonkers follow-ups about “if you go back far enough …”, or “technically all humans’ DNA …”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/30/mixed-person-language-vocabulary

It's not that long since it was acceptable, my friend at school used to describe herself as half-caste 30 years or so ago. I think you have to have some tolerance of people using words that have recently been accepted terms, a word doesn't go from being OK to beyond the pale overnight.

"If people don't want to be caught out they'll do a daily sweep of all the things they think they already know as a fact and re-research those things they think they already know to make sure nothing has changed".

Barking. Unless you come across new information in some form, you will have no idea that the things you thought you knew have changed. That will be as true for you as for anybody, on all sorts of subjects, I'm sorry to tell you. I hope you find other people more forgiving when your mistakes arise from a completely genuine ignorance of the latest information and take account of your intentions as well as your contemporaneous information when deciding whether to tar and feather you for it.

The intolerance on this thread is something else. Frankly it reads as a scramble to feel superior at being better informed than some rather than any actual attempt at retaining or improving good relationships within and between communities with simple, pleasant pragmatism. I don't have time for that.

I absolutely hate "dual heritage". I'm not dual heritage, I'm mixed race - I have more than 2 heritages.

I actually don't mind half caste, but it's what I was brought up using (my granny and mum both consider themselves half caste) but I wouldn't use it to describe someone else but don't care if it's said about me.

This. I wouldn't say half caste or mixed race.

I do think a lot of it is to do with people not privy to work based diversity courses.

I work with people from different nationalities all the time.
I have had to educate myself by reading up or asking questions.
For example, I worked with a Muslim lady last year and wanted to buy her a gift.
Do you think I went and asked her if 'this gift might be offensive to you'?
I also have Jewish family and have to learn a lot regarding their religion to not offend or come across as ignorant.
I either ask for advice or learn myself from Google.

Can you imagine going up to a mixed race person and saying 'is calling your son half caste OK?'

Subconsciously, I think many people have racist attitudes which were handed down through our ancestors.
My parents were very white, middle class and we had few friends of different nationalities. Grew up in a very white area and very naive. I know I probably had some of these attitudes in my subconscious mind.
We have to make a conscious effort to get rid of it.
If you can't be bothered to do that, then nothing will change.

I remember starting high school and saying to a lad ' are you half caste'. He promptly told me to fuck off (quite rightly)

So an actual mixed race person is less informed than 'work based diversity courses given by white people'.

Right, OK then!

Haha. But taught you right. 😜

You've probably made mistakes, however much you've researched. Other cultures are nuanced things, impossible to fully learn from the outside.

Presumably you'd agree that the right and productive thing for them to do is condemn your ignorance behind your back?

I'm public sector, so have been on many a diversity course thanks. My dc refer to themselves as mixed, or mixed race. Would you tell them they're wrong, and should go on a course then?

People don't know about the origins of words though - my parents (who would have been in their 90's now) used the term and taught us that this was the POLITE word to use - just as we would never (in the 50's and 60's) have referred to anyone as "Black" that would have been very rude - the polite term was "coloured". The fact that your husband's Nigerian Auntie also used it is indicative that it was not used in a negative way by that generation.

I remember when there was a push to stop talking about "the handicapped" because of the origins of the term. I was first told not to use it by an American visitor to my uni in 1978. Well I'd grown up with a family member who had cerebral palsy. At that point we still referred to him as being Spastic, we were supported by the spastic society and we fund raised for them, their charity shops were Spastic Society shops (now Scope) he went weekly to the "Handicap" club. I have older relatives who still occasionally use the term "handicapped" - they are far from prejudiced, they do volunteer work with that community - They try not to use the term, but they really don't get why it might be offensive now if it wasn't offensive when my family member was alive and using similar services.

If YOU only realised Half Caste was offensive having read up on its origins I think you might need to give people who don't have that knowledge some slack. It will die out as a term as it is so rarely used these days.

Apparently so!

You do seem genuinely unaware that many mixed people find the term "mixed race" deeply offensive.

@Creepycrawler no! I wasn't insinuating that at all, although I've been told that mixed race is also outdated, and that dual heritage is the term to use - thank you for clarifying that it is ok to use.

My point was that unless people have a means of knowing about the changes in words, there may well be some people that continue to use outdated terms inadvertently.

@skippy67 see my above comment.

Sounds like the school yard TFT.

Grow up and realise that I was asking opinions like people do on MN and you don't like the fact that some people actually agree the term was condemned years ago and you bloody know it.

Stop apologising for it's use in 2023.

Thanks for the backtrack.

I totally agree, it's confusing and even for me.

But this particular term is exteremly outdated and derogatory.
I can see why people get confused with terms used in the last 20 years without meaning to.

BTW I'm not blaming anyone for not realising that "mixed race" is now unacceptable to many. As I said earlier, the status of such terms continually changes and it can be hard to keep up, regardless of one's personal skin colour.

It's not unacceptable though.

@skippy67 what fucking back track? I said I'd never use half caste, but I'd also been told that mixed race was also not ok. I've held my hand up to that.

I am sure there are and I'd stand to be corrected if they did do.
It's just I've never come across anyone who has myself.
I will read more up on it though.

I provided a link to an article explaining why many mixed people find it unacceptable, and inevitably that will increasingly be the case.

Genuine question, what is the correct term please?