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?

I usually refer to my dd as half English(cos of me) and half Japanese(cos of Dad)-this explains our culture, and thats it.soHAlf/half.i find half- caste a little distasteful cos of the word itself refers to caste system in India, and makes me think of one person being better than another, which is something i dont agree with-we are all equal!
and i usually have to tell people this cos she doesnt look like me, and i want to acknowledge her uniquness!!!I am so proud......!

I say my children are BOTH Chinese and English. "Half" is so incomplete, and there is nothing incomplete about them.

Wow, this thread's been going for more than two years!
When I was growing up half caste meant someone who was mixed race, not just white/Indian.

its so true, slng, all this labelling is so daft really. but my dd does have two completely different cultures that need to be acknowledged and BOTH sounds better.how about 21st century citizen???
new and improved?
one day all the labelling will disappear, but its human nature to want to try and get a handle on another persons background and experience, isnt it?

Hmmm feel obliged to post not sure why as probably no-one is listening. It is absolutely hysterical the way some people get all agitated and jump up and down about others being 'offended ' by the use of half caste mixed race whatever when their 'friend brother' whoever describes themselves as this. Describe yourself however you want to. Why do you need to categorise others in this way?
I can't actually see the need to describe people by either of these terms as they encompass so many different possible combinations and half caste in particular has horrible overtones of colonialism and slavery. Mixed race-well aren't we all to some degree???
If you want to describe someone would it not be better to say the tall one in the pink jumper or alternately if you are particularly referring to their 'looks' say the little girl who is olive skinned with curly dark hair as for all you know she could be a combination of Portuguese, black Caribbean welsh and English as are some friends of ours daughters'. Also people who are (for example) half Japanese and half Indian do not look anything like people who are (for example) half Swedish and half Kenyan so why lump them all together?

In my experience people who use the term half caste generally aren't purposely trying to be racist more time they use it because they don't know any better..in other words its more ignorance than racism..

I think that's mostly true SE13, but I have had the term used towards me as a deliberate insult (and completley factually incorrect too!)

Same Mercy..In these cases when people know better but still use it it's clearly racism..

I find 'half-caste' and 'coloured' really offensive. To me they are words from the 60s and 70s when people were ignorant of racial issues - I'm not saying that people use them maliciously, just that they are ignorant of the offence they might cause. So I'm interested to read what people are saying about not being offended by the words on this thread. My kids are mixed-race and I would HATE to hear them referred to as 'half-caste'. I even feel creepy typing the word.

Half caste is offensive to a lot of peoplle because caste is a word meaning 'class' or 'quality'. Half class or half quality - does that sound ok?

Coloured is offensive to a lot of people because it was a label used to make 'other' anyone who isn't white. White being the 'norm' and coloured being everything else. The inferiority inherent in the use of the word coloured is clear to me, if not to many others...

I have met people who describe themselves as coloured, and people who hate it. A black woman I met said she would punch anyone who called her coloured - and I thi nk she meant it!

I use 'dual heritage' if I'm writing official work stuff and mixed race if not. My kids will be triple heritage at the very least, black, arab, white. Calling them 'half caste' is inaccurate, so is dual heritage, or indeed coloured. They will be mixed race, IMHO. OH calls himself mixed.

From wikipedia:

Half-caste (or half-cast) is a term used to describe people of mixed race or enthicity.[1] Caste comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish casta, meaning race. The term originates from the Indian caste-system, where a person of 'lesser' or half-caste would be deemed to be of a 'lower class'. While the origins of the term are derogatory, its usage has evolved to give it the more objective meaning described above.

Personally, i am mixed race and find it offensive, but that might be because i am of indian origin?

ScreamEagle, the words pi and nr were once common place too. Do you think it's 'madness' that we don't use these words any more?

Half-caste is a ghastly term to use and we should tactfully explain this to people when they it without meaning to be offensive.

This is an old post but still relevant. I'm mixed race. Over the years I have heard lots of comments over race, and in the military heard some racism generally from young men who said it out of ignorance and to prove their sameness with other soldiers. I've never liked a caste system. Those who are of a higher caste looking down at those below. Half-caste has always described someone who doesn't belong. It's is not acceptable. Mulato to describe skin colour equally has not place. It's predecessor word is mule, an animal part horse, part donkey, typically sterile. My partner recently called my son a half-caste. I was so dismayed especially when she would not accept how it affected me. I find it humiliating and derogatory. I would ask that even if you are mixed race, you think about the meaning behind such words and hopefully consign these ones to history.

Totally agree. Even those of us who are of mixed heritage need to think about the language we use. I said "mixed race" for so long but try not to anymore - there's no such thing as race anyway! Just the human race🙂. I now tend to say of mixed heritage or mixed ethnicity.

Hey
I am white, from Northern Ireland (but bought up in England) - so had my own xenophobic challenges growing up when we moved to England in the 80's as they hated us as thought we were all terrrorists!! Many many years later I now have a Jamaican husband and 2 x bi-racial(mixed race kids). If anyone described them as half caste I would be outraged - it literally means 'less'. Same as back to apartheid and 'coloured'. I cant walk and imagine someone else's shoes in terms of discrimination but what I have been through with my daughter in her 'unconscious' wanting to a be blonde Elsa or having straight hair or having my skin because it was just 'better' has literally broken my heart and I havent been the best in dealing with her hair (but finally winning/getting there!). She is (as is her little brother) the most beautiful combination of everything that is right to me and I I honestly believe they are the best of two amazing cultures in the world. But is it wrong that I still get upset that they will always be seen as black - does that mean I am denied more as their mum?

When I was a 'young lass' we all used half-caste and didn't think much of it, but I wouldn't use it now in the same way I wouldn't describe someone as mixed. I prefer just saying or describing the person by their background or heritage: Indian-French, Italian-Nigerian, Japanese-Hawaiian, or Chirish (Chinese-Irish, apparently!)

For the past several years, I've been curt towards my MIL for using the word 'coloured'. She's Northern Irish @Pam70 and in her 70s. Lately I've learned to leave her alone. She says it without malice and is a good person, but it used to send me into an absolute rage and I'd have a massive go at her every time.

So many people are used to using wrong terms they are used to. For example here in the UK, the word 'Asian' seems to have been taken over by south Asians, while east and south Asians are still occasionally described as 'Oriental' which essentially is a word used to describe objects.

Society's still evolving and we will find the right terms to describe people soon.

I am half-white English and half-Indian, and reasonably thick-skinned. But I can tell you that for the past sixty years, I have found that being referred to as "half caste" is really offensive, and strangely upsetting, distinct from all the other racial epithets in circulation.^^

I'm not sure why this particular phrase is so hurtful, but it is. Perhaps because it's so dehumanising. At least if you are called a Paki, or a Wog, there exists the implicit acknowledgment that you are at least a (type of) human being. But "half-caste", like "mulatatto" or "mixed breed" (an official British Empire designation, if you can believe that!) is like describing an animal or a thing.

In the USA, I have found that people with an ancestors from more than one European country, cheerfully refer to themselves as "mutts", often with a coy giggle. Of course in this context there is no power behind the word, and indeed it serves to let them not-so-subtly hammer home the fact that they are 100% white. You don't hear Americans of mixed racial background describe themselves as "mutts".

So, don't use the term "half-caste".

If it's absolutely crucial to you to nail down a precise description of person's racial pedigree, try "half-X and half-Y"

During all these decades, it's never occurred to me to use the formulation recommended by poster Sing, above: "both X and Y", which makes the point that you are a whole person, made of elements coming together. And if it's not biologically precise, too bad. Thanks, Sing.