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It's outdated. The NAACP uses it for historical reasons.
Exactly. United Negro College Fund does the same thing.
About 5 or 10 years ago one of the ushers at our church, an older white working class man from New York, referred to another usher as "the colored fella". I had not run across that term in a long time, and he didn't mean it in a nasty way at all. Still, it's not a term I would ever use.
Doesn’t everyone have a color ? Yes
Do some people act good or bad ? Yes
Are some colors good or bad ? No, unless you practice identity politics and think color ( something you’re born with and can’t change) defines all
People of all ‘colors’ are being kept in a perpetual state of rage, fueled by the media
It sows division, hate, and tribalism
What’s the offense of the week ? Something someone said or did 30 years ago ?
If you must refer to a person and you want to be polite use their name
It’s the sweetest word they know
Being dispersed has been difficult to accept for many Black people. At least Italians know they are Italian Americans, People from Japan know they are Japanese or Asian Americans. For some of us, we don't know whether we are from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, or any other region of the world. We were on slave ships, enslaved, and the labels began.
Black Americans, Afro American, African Americans, People of Color. We have an identity crisis. In between the lines we have the Jim Crow past, racism in general, that have given us derogatory labels, that I will not list.
There would not be an issue (at least I hope not) if we could all trace our beginnings. We may never know as a people.
As far as color is concerned, all people have a color. It offends me (a little) because all people really could be call "colored." It just fell on Black people.
Today, I don't know who is behind the scenes updating or identity and exclaiming to everyone how to address us. We all need to be happy in our own skin!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hickoryfan
As far as color is concerned, all people have a color. It offends me (a little) because all people really could be called "colored." It just fell on Black people.
Hmmm. If you take any item and you take all colour away, then that item becomes black...
There is historical baggage associated with the terms.
Until the 14th Amendment, black people in America were not considered citizens, but Africans (regardless how long the family tree had been in America). The "polite" term for a free black man was "African." That's why the African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded by free and freed blacks in 1816 is called so.
By the time the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in the mid-19th century, that word had begun to reach ascendancy as the "polite" term for blacks in America. "People of color" was a "polite" term used through the 1800s more by whites than blacks.
"Negro" had been used all along, varying in social connotation through the years but eventually becoming the more "erudite" term by 1900.
The shift to "black" in the late 60s was purely political. It denoted a rejection of the goal of racial assimilation, which white people had resisted anyway, and an assertion self-identification. I began considering myself black in 1968...started growing my Afro the same year.
At my high school graduation ceremony, I had been awarded a scholarship by a white service club known for its all-white membership and support of Confederate causes. I can't guess how their internal selection process ran that year. But the elderly white man at the podium announcing the award said, "This is the first time we have made this award to a colored boy...."
There was a collective gasp across the auditorium. But frankly, it didn't bother me. He was an old guy (even old blacks at the time were still using "colored")...and they were giving me money.
"Person of color" has fairly recently come back into play merely as a more positive-sounding euphemism for "non-white." But it's not the term to use when one really means "black." And of course, we have the newer term ADOS for "American Descendant of Slavery" to differentiate such people from subsequent voluntary African immigrants.
In America, being of African descent by any percentage has always been a social target. For instance, several state anti-miscegenation laws permitted interracial marriage between any combination of races...as long as neither of them was black. If there was any reason that a person could be identified as having any amount of black genetics, American society considered that person "black." Black people didn't make that social rule, white people did.
There is a small town in southern Ohio where even today the inhabitants are considered "black" by surrounding towns. The inhabitants consider themselves black. But visually, they look as white as can be. The reason they're considered "black" by surrounding towns is because nearly a hundred years ago, a black man moved there, married a white woman, and his genes apparently "contaminated" the entire town.
"Bi-racial" had no social meaning in America until the late 1980s. That's why older bi-racial people (45-50 years of age seems to be the cut-off) usually identify as "black." That's the way they were treated and raised as children by American society. (As an aside, there is a recognized tendency of younger bi-racial people to identify as black if their mother is the black parent.)
At this point, though, it's hard for me to believe that anyone still using "colored person" is not simply being contrary and obnoxious.
Why would it be? White people aren't offended when we are called white. Look at the background of this website that is white, have you ever seen a white person in your life?
And Black people aren't offended when referred to as Black. Or people of color.
But yes, referring to someone as a colored person is offensive.
"Colored People" was a very offensive term for a while, and I find it intriguing we've now gone back to "People of color."
What is the difference? You tell me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saibot
I suspect it's the "people-first" movement, which states that if you put the word "colored/black" first, that becomes the emphasis, the most important thing.
If you put "person/people" first, it emphasizes that these are people first of all, and their color/race is secondary.
So "person of color" is OK, but "colored person" is not.
I find the difference minor at best, and highly inconsistent. It's still OK not only to say white people, but also Asian people, black people, native people, and so forth. Colored people is not okay to say.
I have friends who are very adamant about people-first in other spheres. One has a daughter who is NOT a "Downs syndrome child," she is a "child with Down syndrome." Another is not an "autistic person," she is a "person with autism." And that distinction is very important to them. On the other hand, the one whose child failed the hearing test at birth has a "Deaf child" (capital D), not a "child with deafness." So you kind of have to guess what people what to hear, and heaven help you if you get it wrong.
I am a retired special education teacher and, in recent years, every parent that I worked with preferred the "person first term". Such as child with deafness or child with autism (or child on the autism spectrum) or child with ADHD.
People saying it the other way such as blind child often didn't get upset but generally preferred child with visual impairment or child who is completely blind
This can be true in other areas as well. Although, it isn't a big deal to me, I prefer, women/person/my name survived cancer which puts the emphasize on me, rather than cancer survivor which puts the emphasize on the cancer.
I think the problem is that to say "Colored" (instead of Colored person) was MEANT to be derogatory. No one said it as an adjective. It was most definitely not used in the past as a respectful term.
I get a kick out of people tripping over the excessive use of African American when black people don't mind being called black. And I question the relevancy of the African part. I am only 3rd generation American on my mother's side...many black families have been here longer than that, and you don't call us Swedish American. I also agree that white is a stupid thing to call us also. I suspect that Caucasian is just too long a word and hard to spell. In Hawaii, whites are called haole and it is not a respectful term there.
My godmother used the word 'Darkies'. And she was a person we were supposed to respect (I could not).
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