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Colored -> Black -> African-American -> Person of Color

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20:56 / 22.04.04

(I'll just be using the term black for the sake of clarity)

When I go to see my grandmother, she usually refers to blacks as colored, which piques my PC racism meter. She's referring to the same people that I would call black, with no real intent of racism, but the outdated terminology makes her sound like a racist.

But, the current in term for black people (and other minorities, but that's not relevant to this) is people of color. What is the difference between colored and person of color, they mean the exact same thing, both in dictionary English, and as used, and yet one is cutting edge PC, and the other is an outdated racist term.

So, does it really matter what you call black people? Of the terms above, I think colored has racist connotations from its past use, person of color just sounds so PC, it makes you lose credibility, and African-American isn't really accurate, especially in a global context. Is black an offensive term?

And, does the language used to describe a people really matter in this context?

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:44 / 22.04.04

But, the current in term for black people (and other minorities, but that's not relevant to this) is people of color.

I think you're a bit behind. Person of color is pretty 80s. For more, why not check out some of the ramifications here?

00:11 / 23.04.04

My take on it is this: call people whatever you want. The word isn't important, it's how you use it and how you mean it. (Any word can sound nasty if you want it too, and vice versa) And for those in minority groups: If someone calls you something you don't like to be called, tell them. There is a pretty good chance they just didn't know.

Obviously, there are certain words that are bound to be offense and should be avoided (i.e. chink, nigger, cracker, etc.) but for the most part, it's what you and your audience feel comfortable with. If you don't know and are afraid of offending someone, say so and ask them. Better to look dumb/confused than rascist.

03:10 / 23.04.04

I hadn't heard person of color a lot until recently, so perhaps it was big in the 80's, died down in the 90's, and has been revived in the 00's, becuase I know at college here, there are frequent references to students of color.

07:39 / 23.04.04

Firstly I think one of the big problems is the use of descriptive adjectives as nouns. I'm gay and I hate it when people refer to 'gays' - it seems immediately and inevitably to limit every aspect of myself down to the aspect of my sexuality. That's not to say that my sexuality isn't important (or important to me) but I always find myself saying something along the lines of, "well actually we prefer to be called gay people". I feel the same about racial epithets - that whenever they're used as a descriptive term they should be used as an adjective rather than as a noun. So basically talking about "Coloreds" or "Blacks" will always be a bit grotesque. "African-American" less so, I think, probably because nationality is treated differently and with more nuance than race.

I think the person of color thing is designed to be more inclusive - essentially arguing that people of color aren't actually all 'black' (I imagine it includes people from Native American, Indian and / or East Asian cultures), and that there is ethnic diversity within the black community as well as outside it. So really it's just an extension - an attempt to find a better and more inclusive vocabulary which reflects our increasing sophistication as cultures in handling and understanding the complexities of race. That's not to say that there isn't further to go, or that there's not a certain intrigue in the same terms being used in slightly different ways over time, as the original contexts change and their earlier understandings are replaced with newer ones.

13:28 / 23.04.04

Yeah, I think it's about humanizing and dehumanizing. One reason racial and all other epithets are so powerful is that they nearly universally dehumanize whoever they are referring to. I don't agree that you can just call everyone whatever you want and only your intent matters. Intent does matter, but the way the message is received is equally valid. I think it's worth putting some thought into whether the terms you use demonstrate respect. I think respect and humanization are the impetus behind making politically correct phrases people-centric.

As for "people of color" specifically, I'm not sure. I was at university in the late 90's and it definitely seemed to be the term used most on campus, but since I've been out here in the "real" world I haven't heard it used so it could just be an academic world term. My fiancee used to work for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and I never once heard anyone there use it. If talking about multiple groups they'd list all of the groups instead of using an all inclusive term like "people of color." Perhaps it's just too general a term because I sense that most minority groups wish to maintain a specific identity and not just be lumped together as "minorities" (as i just went and lumped them all together in that sentence - what a dolt I am).

15:39 / 23.04.04

I dunno. I think if I was " a person of colour, " that's probably the last way I'd want to be described. It would almost sound like an apology in a way. Y'know " I'm not African, I'm not Indian, I'm a person of colour... " I can't really picture anyone actually saying that, nor, and specifically, even wanting to. What would be the point, and why would you feel like you had to do anyway ?

17:17 / 23.04.04

But on the other hand the question you have to ask yourself is are they African? Are they Indian? I mean - I don't consider myself to have any particular affinity with the people of the Caucasus (as the vaguely clumsy / discredited theory would have us believe my ethnicity emerged), and I'm not sure how much affinity or sense of solidarity a black African man would feel with an black American man if they were to meet. These geographical epithets are kind of short-hand for ethnicities, but they're clumsy and crass, particularly when you're dealing with people who feel a strong sense of their nationality as being different from their ethnic 'homeland', and even more so when there's disagreements about origins (Jamaica vs. Africa) or in the case of the increasing number of people of mixed ethnicity, or the second-generation children of immigrants who increasingly can't say, "My people come from Africa", but are instead considered 'non-white' while having an ethnicity that might be as varied as part Native American, part-Japanese, part-Welsh and part-Jamaican. I think it's the increasing variety and explosion of ethnic mixes that lead to terms like 'people of color' - which (I'll agree straight-off) is a bloody nasty mealy-mouthed kind of phrase.

17:42 / 23.04.04

To reiterate a point previously made, it's not what you think people should be called, but the term they choose to be called. If you must label, it's only polite to ask the folks you're labeling.

The term people of color is indeed meant to be more inclusive and broaden the issue beyond the disparate groups of minorities, and address the larger issue of "other" as designated by perceived pigment.

I personally prefer to be called black and I hate African American. (We've been here just as long, so you can call me African-American so long as everyone but the native people gets a damn hyphen.) However, this doesn't mean that I scream bigot every time someone calls me African-American. It just means I'm really impressed when someone thinks to ask me.

It's rare that you have someone identifying as a person of color, since if you are identifying yourself you usually want to be a little more informative. The issues an Asian American male faces are different than a Latina. Usually when people use the term person of color, it's to address global issues common to all perceived racial minorities

18:54 / 23.04.04

The trouble I always saw with hyphenated terms like 'African-American' is how they seem like qualifiers (if that's the word) rather than being purely descriptive. You're an African-American, not a regular American. Bleargh. Terms which speak directly to skin color have always seemed more appropriate to me.

And adjectives vs. nouns is spot on in pretty much every case I can think of. My campus's 'Resource Center for Queer Youth' would sound awfully funny if it were a 'Resource Center for Queers.' (To my ear, anyway.)

19:33 / 23.04.04

I agree that terms like African-American are often inaccurate, and I personally try to ask the person I'm speaking to what they prefer, but we do apparently need terms for talking about large groups of people as well. How we arrive at those terms seems important. Tommy, using your logic, wouldn't referring to someone as a black man be the same: "Oh, he's not a man, he's a black man." This seems dubious, especially when "black" (or "red" or "yellow") already have negative connotations in our culture.

Ideally, everyone is just a person, but we do apply labels to people and that's not always a bad thing. Often people want a specific signifier to associate their identity with a particular subset of people, but I agree that any proper labelling should be self applied. Any time one group starts creating categories for everyone else and deciding who goes in which category it's going to get messy. I think those markers that we use collectively need to come from the communities being referred to themselves and not applied by an "other" (though I do understand the frustration of the other who wonders why the terms are always changing, which seems to be what sparked this thread to begin with).

19:36 / 23.04.04

To reiterate a point previously made, it's not what you think people should be called, but the term they choose to be called. If you must label, it's only polite to ask the folks you're labeling.

The only problem with this, passer, is that in practice I don't see how it works. Say I'm telling a story to a room full of people, an anecdote that necessitates saying so-and-so was a black man, and I suddenly stop and turn to you, "Say, passer, what should I call him? Black person? African-American?" Doesn't that single you out as 'other' or some kind of ambassador from the strange land of black people? It doesn't seem right.

I think, more realistically, you can pick up on someone's preferences if you've had several conversations with them, but when you're speaking to someone you don't know already, you don't have a way of knowing what might offend them and I feel it's off-putting to ask. This is why it's useful to agree on generally-acceptable-to-most-people terms.

21:12 / 23.04.04

I may not the most racially sensitive person in the world, bu I usually say 'black people' over 'blacks' (really). I also prefer 'Jewish people' to 'Jews', etc. But sometimes it seems dumb to nitpick too much over everything people say. If you leave out one part of the word by accident all of a sudden you're racist. What should matter is the intent of what someone means instead of what they specifically or accidently say without being up to date on the latest PC jargon, but you can't read everyone's minds.

What kind of makes sense is that the terms 'black' and 'white' have connotations of races being opposites and also the negative and positive conotations of those colors. Would it worked if labels like Caucasian and Negro (although that word kind of has negative conotations too) were used, and weren't refering to colors but just dry words for races?

You really can't win and might as well just keep it the way it is. I guess.

21:23 / 23.04.04

people of color aren't actually all 'black' (I imagine it includes people from Native American, Indian and / or East Asian cultures)

Actually, in the US it's primarily a catch-phrase to talk about them who Tavist Smiley calls "black folk" and them who others call "la raza" (that is, the Latin-Americans/Hispanics).

I'm quite fond of "black folk," in part because it's kind of cheesy. We're all jes folk, ain't it so?
It makes me smile, anyway.

-------

My filecard on this:
Coloured meant something different than Black in apartheid South Africa. They were technical terms. Coloured was someone who was either mixed race or Asian (unless Taiwanese or Japanese, because trade-relations=honorary Whites).

I'm under the impression that there was an even more baroque descriptive system here in the States in the 19th century. Quadroons, Octoroons, etc. But somewhere around the Civil War, it gradually started being more about what you looked like and less who your parents were. Skin over genes. In 20th century South Africa, it was mostly about racial identity and lines of descent. Genes over skin.

Nalyd Khezr Bey

00:13 / 24.04.04

Maybe one day we will all just refer to ourselves as domesticated primates and quit putting predicates around people. I have problems with the limited self-definition of skin-colour and it's supposed importance. It's all political BS and, like most "-isms", is of no use whatsoever. I have never cared what colour someone's skin appears to be. Malcolm X even started to understand that "color" was a metaphor for "attitude" and "belief" in the U.S. I live right in the center of the United States and have put up with the stupidest of the stupid when it comes to racism. I can say with certitude that racism IS stupid. I never refer to any people by their skin colour, or even those "nationalistic" PC terms like African-American, Native American (they were here a lot longer than "America"), etc. The people referred to as "African-Americans" seem to be more in tune with what the "American Dream" is supposed to be considering they built this country.

05:57 / 24.04.04

Tommy, using your logic, wouldn't referring to someone as a black man be the same: "Oh, he's not a man, he's a black man."

Not exactly, because I can refer to myself as a 'man' or as a 'white man' if I need the adjective, but there is no standard hyphenated term for an American of my ethnic background. 'Euro-American', I suppose, but that's hardly in common usage.

08:29 / 24.04.04

To be honest, 'he's not a man, he's a black man' sounds pretty implausible as a statement to me because it has an enormous contradicition in it. The big trend in offensive language is dehumanising language, so keeping that in place is important to me. "He's not a man, he's a black" sounds ot me enormously more offensive.

I was just thinking - is it better to use examples like this or would it be better to find a way to talk in the abstract, either by inventing an ethnicity (so as to be able to approach it in terms that aren't emotionally loaded) or by using ethnically european white people as our target and seeing which (currently unspoken) labels people would be least/most comfortable with should the world have turned out in different ways. Could we do an equivalent of the veil of ignorance with language?

My agent A cannot hold out for some social settlement that favors people with those characteristics; s/he doesn't know what they are. S/he will therefore have to protect my interests, as s/he must as their trustee, only by holding out for a social settlement in which no one's interests are given short shrift. H/er impartiality is a product of h/er self-interestedness plus h/er ignorance. And the latter, crucial to this procedure, is a product of the veil of ignorance.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

09:05 / 24.04.04

Try referring to so-called 'black' people as 'brown' people and see the reaction you get. It always raises eyebrows in non-brown company, and this is something I find interesting...I mean, have you ever met a black person?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:38 / 24.04.04

Nalyd23 Maybe one day we will all just refer to ourselves as domesticated primates and quit putting predicates around people... It's all political BS and, like most "-isms", is of no use whatsoever. I have never cared what colour someone's skin appears to be...I never refer to any people by their skin colour.

What about when describing the victim or perpetrator of a crime?

Nalyd Khezr Bey

03:30 / 25.04.04

Or Ldy f t Flwrs What about when describing the victom or perpetrator of a crime?
Well, in the anarchist utopia I am referring to, crime would not exist. Crime is merely the result of breaking laws. Laws don't seem to go over very well in an anarchist worldview. But don't worry, the beautiful spectrum of racism will endure because this silly idea of an anarchist utopia seems to be very naive. Some of us, like myself, try to be visionaries in a world of no vision. Racism hides itself for awhile but always seems to show up for dinner unexpectedly. There is much work to be done. Praise Bob!

09:10 / 25.04.04

I think it's less to do with the world having no vision as it is that the world is about emerging complexities and simple visionary world-views tend not to think through the second or third-order repercussions of changing systems that have come about by slow evolutionary pressures. Any gameable world will be gamed unless we put in mechanisms that minimise it - the distinction between rule and helpful process often being unclear. But I'm getting off the point - I think what you're being asked is how you describe someone in any plausible fashion without making reference to the colour of their skin.

13:05 / 25.04.04

The best solution would be a selection of skin color charts. The current racial terms used aren't actually very descriptive at all. Beyonce Knowles, Denzel Washington, and Grace Jones are all black, but their skin tones are comepletely different, just as Brad Pitt and Rose McGowan are both white,however they certainly aren't the same white.

17:49 / 25.04.04

So, does it really matter what you call black people? Of the terms above, I think colored has racist connotations from its past use, person of color just sounds so PC, it makes you lose credibility, and African-American isn't really accurate, especially in a global context. Is black an offensive term?

I suppose, logically speaking, as long as there is no bad intent, it shouldn't really matter what specific word you use. But, personally, when I hear or read people using 'coloured' or 'blacks' (or any of a myriad of non acceptable labels people are wont to apply) it makes me cringe. For example, a friend of mine from uni used the term 'coloured' in a conversation with me a few years ago - I was pretty dumbfounded actually. Although I don't think she is/was racist in any way, and nothing before that had even raised the idea in my mind, it provoked a gut reaction. (Possibly because it's not like she was someone's grandmother, you know?) Maybe I am too schooled on PCisms, I don't know.

It is a kind of indicator, though. Even if it's just of the respect a person has. It just doesn't suggest much sensativity. Or, maybe my reaction was simply because some language just is taboo.

22:34 / 25.04.04

Of course it's harder to have sensitivity when you've never had the context in which to use the various terms - or a status quo that doesn't give you guidance. I grew up in Norfolk which is a pretty white middle class place with very few ethnic minorities of any kind. I've heard most of my family use clumsy language and I give them the benefit of the doubt and say that mostly it's because they're not exposed to non-white people and/or conversations involving non-white people very often and are basically just a bit clueless. That stuff I find eminently forgiveable, but nonetheless slightly alarming and potentially easy to exploit.

17:05 / 26.04.04

Tom Coates: Yeah, that's an excuse if you are socially isolated, but my friend and me went to Goldsmiths, which prides itself on being multicultural, etc etc... Which makes it all the more difficult to work out.

18:05 / 26.04.04

Say I'm telling a story to a room full of people, an anecdote that necessitates saying so-and-so was a black man, and I suddenly stop and turn to you, "Say, passer, what should I call him? Black person? African-American?"

I'd be curious as to what sort of anecdote could be shared to a room full of people, where the importance of a character's "blackness" is significant while at the same time not being about the same dynamic that would foster the need to ask wether that charactor should be labeled "black," "colored" or "Afro-American" by a person in that room that would fit a similar characterization?

18:33 / 26.04.04

Jeeez, Mr Tricks, your syntax is really hurting my head. But if I understand your question correctly, which I'm not at all sure I do, then: Our Lady's example of describing the victim of a crime is about what I'd had in mind.

21:55 / 26.04.04

what difference would the victim's skin color make?

22:06 / 26.04.04

maybe if you were talking about racism and violence? I think that removing all descriptions of race (and sex, age, etc) on the basis that it doesn't make a difference would really restrict the tools of debate/analysis, calling attention to racist, sexist, agist, whatever-ist behaviour. Wouldn't it?

12:27 / 27.04.04

Okay, if you're going to push this point:

In 1994, Susan Smith's children disappeared and she claimed that a carjacker had kidnapped them. She asked police and the community to be on the lookout for this man. Later she confessed that she'd killed her own children by letting her car roll into a lake while they were buckled into their seats.

There's a descriptor missing that adds a rather important element to the news story, don't you think? Or do you think the fact that she used racial profiling as a red herring is irrelevant?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:39 / 27.04.04

Mr Tricks what difference would the victim's skin color make?

Officer Facist Oppressor of the People and Boot-Boy For the Man (on the phone): "So, you saw the stabbing did you sir? Sir, can you quickly tell me whether the victim was black? There's been a spate of killings of black people recently which we suspect is the work of a White Supremacist group."
Mr Tricks: "I'm not going to tell you that you facist as there is no reason you need to know that information."
Officer: "O-kay... By the way, when you reported your bag stolen, was the guy who stole it black, because we have someone who's clothes sort of match your description, and a bag that might be yours and we just need to check."
Mr Tricks: "You don't need to know that, pig!"

16:13 / 27.04.04

Jester:
wouldn't it? . . . that's why I'd agree with Passer in suggesting that one reference someone most qualified with regards to what "term" to use... "black, Afro-American, Colored etc." If you're not sure chances are there may be someone pressent that is.

ibis clowns down:
I remember the story of Susan Smith's children. The scapegoat of the black man is a pretty common one. I wonder how effective that ploy would've been if she use an Asian offender... or used "some person of color." I think her use of an unspecified "black man" played perfectly upon the loaded dynamics I believe we're talking about.

O Ly f t Flrs
hmmm . . . I suppose that was supose to be funny but I'm really more interested in what was said here:

Say I'm telling a story to a room full of people, an anecdote that necessitates saying so-and-so was a black man, and I suddenly stop and turn to you, "Say, passer, what should I call him? Black person? African-American?"

this doesn't strike me as having anything to do with a crime or helping (or not) the police or S.S. or whatever... it seems to me to have to do with what?
Telling a story to a room full of people?
About a black person?

What kind of story would need that specification and not be about race?

If is was about race than why not seek reference from one of the "black" people present when the story is being told?

16:45 / 27.04.04

Oh, my god. Now I'm getting annoyed. Fine, I'll be even more clear about the point I was making.

The reason I used the Susan Smith story was not to bring up a whole new point about racial profiling, but specifically to illustrate my last post. You seemed to be questioning my need to ever specify the race of someone in an anecdote. Let's put it all together!

I'm telling a story to a room full of people. The story is the story of Susan Smith. Let's say, just to illustrate the point I was making to passer, and for no other reason whatsoever, that everyone in the room except for passer, who has told us h/she is black, is white.

So I say, "In 1994, Susan Smith's children disappeared and she claimed that a carjacker -- Wait, hey passer, what should I call him? Black person? African-American?"

You, Mr Tricks, know that I need to mention the race of the fictional carjacker bc of its relevance to the story. But here, you see, everyone is now looking at passer, one of the "Other," to answer my question about what the "Other" like to be called. I find it offensive.

I'm sorry to be so patronizing, but really. Annoyed.

17:35 / 27.04.04

This sort of nonsense cuts right through race in to almost every area of how modern life is defined. One is a "motorist", a "schoolboy" or "schoolgirl" (other than in the fleeting early years of a child's life, there are few children who do not attend school, unfortunately), a "conservative" or "liberal" (yuck! Wouldn't life be so simple if only two ideologies existed? Alas, life is interesting instead), the use of religions as descriptions, and the unending use of job titles to describe people (probably because everything that isn't a job has become a hobby [1]). I'm a white, a student, an atheist and a liberal (if it's a choice between those two). But I like to think that my life is slightly more interesting than these radio-button definitions (although it most probably isn't).

Although it's difficult, especially in the hackneyed news media, to try to talk about a person and far easier simply to trot out simple label definitions, it would be very cool if people could see beyond these silly labels and start talking about the people themselves.

[1] See Theodor Adorno's essay "Free Time", reproduced in "The Culture Industry", published by Routledge Classics, where he describes the use of the word 'hobby' and related words as being ways of filling one's free time, and the implied lack of effort or devotion that one puts in to their 'hobbies' making them essentially a half-hearted waste of time.

18:56 / 27.04.04

Hang in there ibis,

in your latest example it WOULD be obserd to refer to Passer in telling your story because you in actuality would be "quoting" (loosly) what Susan Smith said... more or less. Still it would be a story about race.

I still don't think it's possible to actualize your hypothetical story in a way where you can both, NOT make the only "black" person in the room an "other" AND not defer to what this person would prefer "black people" to be called.

In an actual situation perhaps the term's already been established... or perhaps that individual has already been made the "other," or is already offended. Perhaps how that person is made to feel is secondary to the relavence to the story being told. Or said individual doesn't give a damn.

What peeked my curiosity was how what passer stated:
If you must label, it's only polite to ask the folks you're labeling. --passer

was met with:
The only problem with this, passer, is that in practice I don't see how it works. Say I'm telling a story to a room full of people, an anecdote that necessitates saying so-and-so was a black man, and I suddenly stop and turn to you, "Say, passer, what should I call him? Black person? African-American?" Doesn't that single you out as 'other' or some kind of ambassador from the strange land of black people? It doesn't seem right.

This doesn't strike me as singling out someone as the other... unless the story is intended to to so. It seems more a case of defering to someone most qualified to determine the terms of such a label's use.

less annoyed?

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