Terminology

[Uhu]

How do you feel about the term "half-caste"? Personally, I hate it because I associate it with apartheid in South Africa. I prefer to use the term mix-race for my twin DS and when people call them half-caste, I always correct them. Am I being pedantic?

Agree agree agree. Not pedantic at all - very important to get these things right. I think most dictionaries now list 'half caste' as an offensive term.

I think half-caste is a horrid term, Uhu, and I would never use it.

thats where the rest of us are struggling - how are we supposed to know whats offensive? some words that weren't considered offensive years ago are now - its confusing! the goalposts keep changing!

What happened to multi-cultural families as a topic title

Did I miss something? I thought that was the one most people preferred

by the way I say 'mixed-race'!

suzywong - you've got a point there - its a bit exclusive that title - I'm not from a multiracial family - except that most Brits are mongrels I suppose

Mind you, hyphen or no hyphen? I spent ages trying to get the right line out of the CRE a while back (for work, incidentally, not out of sheer pedantic cussedness) with zero result. In the end I went hyphen-less, but it's all rather less clear than the disability field.

I have been know to use the term HC to show up people who are faffing and stammering over using it themselves as in "so are you kids .. erm ..erm...."

Seriously can we have mutlicultural instead of multiracial, it is very exclusive, I mean a lot of MNers are families of different nationalites and they have issues that could be usefully discussed here

I agree half-caste sounds derogatory and find the english use this term often. Coloured is what we said when I was younger (white raised in Zambia) but in america this applies any person of colour. I think mixed race is the best term as it is less ambiguous.

I think half-caste sounds hopelessly outdated and old-fashioned now, but mixed race is awful as well, because the whole world is mixed race. I don't like it because it implies there's such a thing as a "pure" race, for want of a better term.

I use mixed race as well though, because there isn't a non-offensive alternative that I know of!

Although I have known for a while that half caste and coloured are deemed offensive, im not sure I knew when they became offensive IYKWIM. Am I right in thinking "black" is appropriate now - having said that I dont know any black people, just lovely chocolately ones

When people ask about my dd, I always just say she is mixed and I wait as I know they will ask either 'are you the nanny' or 'she doesn't look like you at all' then i normally explain that I am chinese and her dad is english (although if you go back much further, his dad side of the family is from turkey and mums from france/swiss) and yes apart from her eye colouring, she takes after her dad completely.

Sorry about multiracial/ multicultural - my mistake. All fixed now.

In America the correct term is "African American" for people of colour, but I don't know what it is in England.

Black British is popular.

thanks Justine, you are very quick off the mark I must say

We say Eurasian, here in Australia Asian=Oriental

Whereas in Britain, Asian used to imply Oriental, but it is now more commonly used to describe India sub-continental.

My DH calls our DD 'Pickney' (spelt wrong)
But at college I was told this is a derogatory term for a slave child....
Surely he can call his DD what ever he wants
Or can't he - is it offensive?
I might object if someone else called her it

Pickaninny was definitely a derogatory term thirty years ago, but I think it's become ironic now.

I remember reading a book in the seventies with "pickaninnies" in it, but it was an old book then, and when I asked my teacher what it meant, she had a fit with the librarian for stocking the book!

In the US, Asian is usually taken to mean "Oriental", and Oriental is considered offensive.

That's interesting Kate. Is Oriental now considered offensive in Britain, anyone?

Katiemac, I never knew that this term was offensive. My mum and her friends use it. My friends and I use it (depending on who we are talking with and we are all Black British)

It's not a term that I have taught DH yet though