Half caste

[Pam70]

This has been troubling me for over a week. A colleague and I were discussing Wife Swap last week and she referred to one of the wives as being half caste.

I hate the term half caste and would never refer to DS or DD as such nor would I ever want them to hear someone call them such.

I didn't say anything to my colleague then and am now wondering if I should. Bear in mind that we live in Northern Ireland which is still relatively new to the idea of multiculturalism.

I don't think she said it in malice or in a derogatory way, it just rolled off her tongue presumably because she has no other term for mixed race?

But if she's using it and she's in her 30s, what hope have I that DS won't be referred to or called such at school by other kids or other parents?

yes, see what you mean. Mixed race then. But I still would like to know how words become out of favour.

mixed heritage sounds a bit pretentious - i cant imagine all the kids on my council estate using that one.

i just cant see how half caste suggests you are half a person. it suggests half your mum and half your dads race which makes you "one"

at the end of the day i guess it is down to each individual if my friends who describe themselves as "half caste" want to continue using the term then they should - i cant see the big problem with that.

soon when we meet people the first thing we will have to say is "excuse me, before we get to know each other and so I dont offend you can you just let me know the correct term I should use if I needed to mention what race you are?"

cha cha - again i have friends whose parent is "half caste" and they still refer to themselves as half caste or black.

whether they have one black parent or a half black parent they look on themselves as black and call themselves "half caste" but the then this is a town where I grew up so I guess the next town is totally different.

tbh lovecloud. If someone were to say something to me that I found offensive I would say so. Hopefully they wouldn't say it to me again. If they did continually then clearly they are out to offend. This doesn't mean that I am going to stop them speaking how they wish with others. It's all about common courtesy.

As to the mixed heritage... I didn't say that people should walk about saying it... just that with all the labels that are out there I quite like it.

Mars, you are Black !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I always thought you were................

purple with pink and yellow spots!

Miladymarslady - i think thats the best way, if you tell someone once then they wont do it again, i prefer people to be out straight and then you know where you stand. This whole thing just happened to me recently as I was used to using "half caste". I met a woman who has a little girl and we got talking, for some reason we got onto families and I said "half caste" she immediately told me she does not use thise words and does not like them and and perfers mixed race. She did not say it in a nasty way and I was fine about it.

and I take it you are no longer lapsed! lmao

Like that'll happen.

My child is mixed race.
Where I live half-caste and coloured are both considered dubious terminology, by people black and white. Outdated, and offensive - with due leeway of course for people who simply haven't caught up and didn't realise.

As far as I know the evolution of these terms came from black people conscious and active in the challenge to old stereotypes.

'Half caste' won't have been used to describe a child in an inner-london schol for well over 20 years.

Thats the one

I find half-caste offensive, but I do understand that people use the term without realising.

I personally prefer mixed race. My children are 'quarter-caste' and I refer to them as mixed race too.

Nope, wasn't me lol....

btw... lovecloud... I really like your name. Could do with one of those at this sleep deprived moment.

I quite like 'mixed-heritage' because it encompasses more of the complexities than mere 'race' - and would perhaps use it when disussing DS's mixed cultural, racial and national heritage of Hindhu/Muslim/Indian/Mauritian/Anglo/Christian/Humanist

i need to take a lovecloud now actually

better get some sleep before i collapse, 10 weeks pregnant and feel like i am 90 - need crisps!!!

blu - i grew up in london and my schools where in london and i lived in peckham, south londond for quite a few years too and it was used there?

but you know what? - i am going to pack my "half caste" offensive term and bury it deeeeeeeeeeeeep!

never to be used again

I always thought half-caste was somehow related to the caste system too (though I don't know if I've based that on something I've read or just made it up) - and as the caste system itself carries all sorts of connotations of 'classes' of people and some being better than others it's not a term I feel comfortable using: I would say mixed race. I thought it was a misuse of language in the same way as, say, calling Native Americans 'Indians' when they are no such thing.

I honestly don't see that it's some sort of PC minefield - though I know a lot of people do claim that. I think as a child I would have said 'half-caste' and 'coloured' - I haven't used either term for years.

Just to throw the cat among the pigeons , at the last "diversity" training I went on (compulsory at my work) we were told that mixed race is not now pc - the pc term is black. Yikes.

diversity courses

Half caste - term used in New Zealand. Don´t know if it out of PC vogue these days... but I don´t associate it with malice so can associate with it just rolling off the tongue.

Labels for everything come and go.

Amazingly i teach a boy who is of mixed white/ westindian parentage and he calls himself 'half caste'

Like the wet, middleged white woman I am I actualy told him that I didn't think it was an appropriate term. I still to think of my stupidity. It just slipped out without my thinking. He just smiled at me as if I was a loon!

see merrygoround now what do we say? If we aren't supposed to use mixed race, but nearly all the mixed race people I know call themselves/their kids mixed race, how can I say it without first knowing if it is going to offend?

I just hate offending people.

BTW, until 5 years ago, I would have said half caste, because I just didn't know another term existed. Was only 20 though, and led a sheltered life.

well I am 35, have not led a sheltered life and my friends use it who are half caste/mixed race!

Maybe it depends on the area you live in, no idea.

But I do resent the thinking that if you use the work half-caste that you are somehow behind the times and a bit backward for not 'keeping up' with what is termed acceptable this week.

But Scummy, a lot of the people posting here have come from black backgrounds, or have a black parent or other ethnic minority, and they have said (with one or two exceptions) that they didn't mind the term 'half-caste' and have used it themselves.

I'm white, come from a white background, my brothers are adopted and we have always referred to them as half-caste, as they have done so themselves.

Also, most people who had used the term, like myself, have agreed not to use it in future as it offended some people, so we have agreed on mixed race.

So far it's been an interesting thread with many valid points. No-one has used the term middle-class because Custy isn't here yet!