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?

@RunningUpThatMill If your diversity courses teach people that they should accept and use the gender pronouns that are offered by people but that mixed parentage/race/heritage is unacceptable when most mixed people in the UK use that term then it is being racist.
There have been several posters saying that dual heritage is correct when people rightly point out that dual =2 which doesn't describe them.

Hang on, you just said ‘we shouldn’t be offended over someone accidentally using an outdated word’, and yet now you are saying coloured is offensive?

So who is allowed to get offended and who is not?

It wasn't me in the meeting!

I was agreeing that as these things are changing so frequently (it seems like that!) that is all too easy to use a term that's now considered unsuitable when that itself not long ago replaced a phrase that wasn't suitable. I'm not for a minute saying terms shouldn't change, but simply if you don't get told you won't necessarily know!

@WheelsUp I see that, and I've admitted I was wrong, however, I would be worried to go against what was being said as the correct terminology. I view people as the human race. I honestly can't think of many times I'd need to use mixed race or dual/mixed heritage in conversation, unless I was talking to someone who described themselves that way.

I have a friend who is 'mixed race' who says she understands this is the best phrase to use, but rightfully points out that we're ALL a mix of races, most of us white anglo saxons but with a good chunk of viking and probably french thrown in too. I think she's past being offended and just knows it's not worth the battle correcting people most of the time.

I didn’t realise ‘mixed race’ wasn’t a thing to say now. My son is and I used this term

@RunningUpThatMill I understand why you have to go along with the words that work have mandated while you're at work.
It is annoying that white people have monetised and called themselves experts in something that they can never be an expert in. They can listen and learn to real people but that happens so rarely because these so called experts tend to have fragility around race issues and can't really discuss or digest things.
Undoubtedly people may use different terms in future but that should be led by the people who the words apply to.

As do most mixed race people on this thread.

I wouldn't be offended if someone used it to me. But I wouldn't use it myself.

I get more annoyed by the term "person of colour". Terrible...

I really don't give two shits if you or anyone else think I'm impure.

In any case, it's beside the point.

The argument that the latin origins of a word mean it must be offensive several thousand years later is bollocks, as any linguist would tell you. It might be offensive now, but it's not because of that particular explanation.

There are plenty of people who try and prove words today mean one thing or another based on tat kind of analysis and it's just sloppy.

And mixed race"....
🙄not sure if that is the way to go either

@WheelsUp I couldn't agree with you more. I might pick up a bit of courage on the next one and ask the white trainer how being mixed race has affected their life? 🤣

I've never been subjected to racism. I am a gay man though, and I've been subjected to homophobia. I would hate my words to hurt someone else. The word queer was extremely derogatory to me when I was younger, the younger generation of the LGBTQ community have brought it back to them 🤣. I hate it, but I'm happy for the youngsters to reclaim it.

I remember that term being used in child hood. I haven't heard it for years. I didn't know it was offensive though.

Is it offensive because caste does not mean the same thing as race?

Are you mixed race Sparkly if you don't mind me asking?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-caste#:~:text=Half%2Dcaste%20(an%20offensive%20term,Spanish%20word%20casta%2C%20meaning%20race.

Most work based diversity courses are full of bullshit that is as likely to be offensive to some as the stuff they tell you is offensive on the course.

In one that I attended that really took the biscuit for me, the leader told the attendees that if they were Catholic, they really needed to look hard at their attitudes. She had a degree in some sort of diversity studies but clearly religious diversity was not her strong point.

Really, why would any workplace be in a position to tell you, or anyone else, what the right answers to this stuff are>

@DemiColon I've never been on a DEIB course where a trainer told a subject to check their beliefs/opinions. If I was present on such a course, I would walk straight out and report to my personnel department.

My kids are mixed race and ive never once heard anyone say this. Last time I heard that germ was probably about 1994!

Same goes for schools and their diversity efforts. All delivered by white teachers who really have no idea. It's not their fault as its part of the curriculum but having the right people to deliver it would be a start.

@DemiColon that was meant to say religious beliefs/opinions.

What seems odd is that the people who don't want to use "mixed-race" also seem to be the people who will say that "not seeing race" is offensive.

Most people think the human race is all one race. They also know that we somewhat arbitrarily divide people into races, mainly along the lines of continental origin/ethnicity. If we know what someone means when they talk about race, or racism, then we also know what they mean when they say someone is mixed race. Even if they just say "mixed" it's really saying the same thing, no one would understand it if the "race" part wasn't implied.

Dual heritage just doesn't mean the same thing.

Bizarre how angry you got just at the idea that someone may call you ‘impure’.

And half-caste isn’t a term that was around ‘several thousand years’ ago, it was coined in the 19th century.

You really have no clue what you’re talking about.

Whoah that's pretty bad. I'm an English teacher and we teach Agard's poem Half Caste and talk about the term. So at least lots of schoolkids have this awareness.

The person running this course, who owned the company, was not white.

She wasn't a particularly insightful person though.

I'm not angry at all, and certainly not at the idea of being impure, which I don't think is meaningful.

I do get a little annoyed by people who want to accuse people of heresy to score points. Which is what a lot of this comes down to. I suspect it's the main reason the speed of what is deemed offensive has sped up so much over the last few years, and words that really are just old-fashioned are now seen as beyond the pale.

I do think half-caste was never a great usage, it reflects ideas about the nature of the body that aren't particularly great. (Though whether that's true in a place like Nigeria, I don't know, it may have quite different connotations there compared to where it originated. ) In English usage it's now quite unusual, even archaic, and I think that anyone who used it today is unlikely to have the underlying beliefs of either the Victorian British, or Hindu class system, in mind.

They aren't going to be thinking about the Latin meaning of the words.