Why do enlish white people insist on calling black people coloured?

Question

It's one of my pet hates!!
It seems to me that people are afraid to say the word BLACK.
It's political correctness gone barmy in my view.Would like to know your opinions and views on my question.
Serious replies only.
Cheers.

Answer 1

I honestly don't know what to call them/you! Should we be calling "brown" people black? No-one tells us what to call them so we guess at what you might prefer! It just seems to me that calling someone black in the UK could seem offensive...
Now im slightly confused!

Answer 2

It is more prevailent amongst the older generations. I think it was thought to be offensive years back to call black people black (although it wasnt), so white people decided that the politically correct way to say it would be to say that black people are coloured.

Which is of course stupid, since white people are a shade of pink! so they are coloured too!

I think in the UK at least, it was looked at in the 80s (when political correctness took itself to a high levels of stupidity at certain times) and people realised that black people should be simply called black. Possibly one of the only decent bits of politically correctness added to our society in that decade!

As for my own opinions, i dont call anyone black. I don't say "look at that black chick, she's hot", id simply say "she is hot". the only time i would really use the term was if i had to try and describe someone to the police or someone in detail. Pigeonholing people into different categories is never a good thing, no matter how it is done.

Answer 3

Its not just white English people. In the late seventies, early eighties it got very confusing for people talking about black people, my black friends at the time told me they prefered to be called coloured, some said they were brown not black and others preferred black. It was a transition period, while everyone decided what they prefered to be called.

I got such a telling off from someone for saying black because they prefered brown and in the end I never knew what to say so I just avoided talking about it.

It wasn't a racist decisison I just couldn't see why it really mattered, its just a colour of their skin and doesn't tell me anything about that persons personality. I wouldn't care if someone said I was white, pink, cream, peach or beige as long as they took the time to get to know me for me.

People in general are honest and kind and if they called me a skin colour that I didn't feel comfortable with then I would explain to them, at the same time knowing deep down they weren't doing it to insult me, but if everyone was telling them something different then I would have to be a little more understanding.

You might find its the older generation who say coloured or people who have not been taught what black people would like to be called. Maybe they met one person who preferred coloured years ago and just stuck to it.

Its just a case of people generalising and everyone does it, after all you presumed ALL White English people call black people coloured, I don't call black people coloured, I call them black, so as you can see, it doesn't matter what colour we are, all people make mistakes and if we stopped critising people for making mistakes and taught them what we liked instead then maybe everyone would be happier.

So I would like to kindly inform you that not all white English people call black people coloured. My friends and family, myself included would use the word black if the conversation required it.

I hope this helps.

Kindest regards

Answer 4

I know quite a few black people who actually refuse to accept the term black and will only be reffered to as 'coloured'. Although, it is technically an offensive term, with it's routes tracing back to classification in Nazi Germany. I also think that there is a fear of getting someone's ethnicity wrong. 'Coloured' seems to be an all-encompasing phrase for people of ethnic origin, whether they're afro-carribean, black, hispanic, asian, thai or anything along those lines, wheras I guess people are afraid that if they guess someones ethnicity incorrectly (say by calling a mixed white and black person asian by mistake) they will cause offence.

Answer 5

I think the older generation thinks that it's the politcally correct to call a person that, I was brought up that way, I was also told that calling a person black was offensive, and to some it is. I think it also depends on where you are from too, I have been in states where calling a person "colored" is right and then I have been in states where a person prefers to be called "black". Unfortunatley people don't veiw things like veiw. I see a person as a person not a color.

Answer 6

The answer is simple: When black people came to this country in the 1950s and 1960s that was the acceptable term, and anything else was considered unacceptable. I remember that we used to use the term when I was a child. Then it all changed and suddenly we were told to use the word black. Up until then we'd have had to avoid that word.

Answer 7

It's only the old ones who do that. Younger people (with the intelligence not to say niggers - and for whom there is little hope) tend to be fully intergrated into the modern world. It's getting to be pretty rare you hear that unless you're out in the sticks at a village fete with Mr Kippling and the famous five!

Oh, but I really must take this opportunity to laugh at the pillock above who tried to correct the English spelling of "coloured" to the American "colored"!!! Consider yourself poked fun at!

Answer 8

Yes, it's PC gone mad. Call me coloured if you like, my hair is red, my eyes are blue, my skin is pink where it's been in the sun and a sickly off-white where it hasn't. Never met a black person who objected. But then you're also right . I've never met a black person.
Personally I couldn't give a tinkers cuss. People are people. But I'd be a right idiot if I said I didn't notice a difference in skin colour.

Answer 9

My husband is half asian and when my Mum calls him 'coloured' (the word which was polite to use before black came into positive use) he laughs and says, "Am I multi coloured?"

Don't forget, to many older people, black is an offensive term. They were told that coloured was a much more acceptable word than some, which people no longer use as they are offensive. It's a generational thing, so please don't get angry, just accept it for what it is - someone trying not to offend you.

Answer 10

My father always used to say coloured and it really irked me, I was 7 when an Indian family came to live next door to us and was fascinated by their skin and hair and had my mom get me a black doll for Christmas that year, I can remember been dragged in the house and belted by my father for telling Sunni next door that I had a black dolly now because I liked her skin and hair so much, I was told never to say black, but coloured, so racist and ignorant in my opinion, I have lots of black and brown friends, I generally call them by their name, but if skin colour ever does come up in conversation we say it how it is, no point pretending to be blue or green if your black or white is there.

Answer 11

I think its only really older people who use the term coloured. Im white and I call black people black. Maybe its cos black people are not really black are they, they are mostly shades of brown, so perhaps coloured is a better term!! But then its not like white people dont have any colour is it!!