Shocked at my friend.

cavework

Please drop the 'white' references..
I find this offensive.. I am NOT white..
It works both ways zagfles..
black is offensive .. so is white to me.. you are judging peoples actions by the (assumed) colour of their skin..

Enterprise_1701C

cavework wrote: »

Enterprise.. can I politely ask how old you are?
Not being ageist.. just interested

I'm 54 ..

zagfles

cavework wrote: »

Please drop the 'white' references..
I find this offensive.. I am NOT white..

Apologies, but it's the PC term to use AFAIK, or has it changed recently?

Remember being PC doesn't have anything to do with being "correct". At least it's not as inaccurate as calling a Chinese person "black"!

PasturesNew

Language used depends on your experience. Having read this thread I'm very confused about what to call black/coloured/half caste/etc people .... if you've only ever heard/used one term (very rarely in any case and probably not for 20-30 years) then how'd you know what the PC police would decide it's OK to use this week?

And you can't take notes, else you'll probably get it wrong in another 20-30 years when you want to use a word again.

I'd call people whatever was appropriate to me at the given moment to convey a visual impression of what I meant.

Whether something's racist depends on context.

"That nice black man gave me the remainder of his car parking ticket when I went into town, saved me £1" is a different kettle of fish to the OP's "face isn't black". Mine's an adjective; theirs is a racist statement.

And if the fella giving me the parking ticket slip was white and a bit short I'd say "That nice sh0rt man over there gave me....."
Or his chubby/massive wife: "That nice big woman gave me...."

cavework

So calling someone black is racist but referring to people who you describe as white in a derogatory manner in your opinion is acceptable?

Person_one

PasturesNew wrote: »

Language used depends on your experience. Having read this thread I'm very confused about what to call black/coloured/half caste/etc people .... if you've only ever heard/used one term (very rarely in any case and probably not for 20-30 years) then how'd you know what the PC police would decide it's OK to use this week?

And you can't take notes, else you'll probably get it wrong in another 20-30 years when you want to use a word again.

I'd call people whatever was appropriate to me at the given moment to convey a visual impression of what I meant.

Probably better to go with what's appropriate to them.

Most people don't generally mind if somebody genuinely wishes to avoid offence so asks what their preferred term is.

Only if its necessary though! That's what gets me, how often in life is it ever actually necessary to refer to somebody by their race? I live and work in a really diverse city and talk to (and about) people of all races, ethnicities, nationalities and cultures every day. I hardly ever feel the need to describe them by anything other than their name or perhaps their job.

How often do you call somebody 'white'? Honestly?

summerspring

PasturesNew wrote: »

Language used depends on your experience. Having read this thread I'm very confused about what to call black/coloured/half caste/etc people .... if you've only ever heard/used one term (very rarely in any case and probably not for 20-30 years) then how'd you know what the PC police would decide it's OK to use this week?

And you can't take notes, else you'll probably get it wrong in another 20-30 years when you want to use a word again.

There used to be a list somewhere on the net of all the newfangled PC terms for everyday adjectives.

Short people are vertically challenged, for example.


The reason the list of PC terms changes so often is because if the PC term is describing something that's inherently negative, then the new word is going to inherit those negative connotations. Take the word special for example. The term special needs took over from handicapped or disabled because it sounded more PC. But now the word special has become negative: My computer's a bit special, it only works sometimes.. :rotfl:

PasturesNew

Person_one wrote: »

... how often in life is it ever actually necessary to refer to somebody by their race? I live and work in a really diverse city and talk to (and about) people of all races, ethnicities, nationalities and cultures every day. I hardly ever feel the need to describe them by anything other than their name or perhaps their job.

Well, now you're comparing apples to pears.

There's a difference between what you do/say when you're talking with somebody - and what you say when they're absent and you/the others don't know them from Adam.

It's not about race in, say, my instance, but about the singular most distinctive attribute about the person: tall, short, fat, black, bald.

You refer to the attribute of the person that makes them most distinctive within any given crowd.

If there were one white person in the street I'd say "the white bloke" - why wouldn't I?

PasturesNew

summerspring wrote: »

There used to be a list somewhere on the net of all the newfangled PC terms for everyday adjectives.

Short people are vertically challenged, for example.

Ah, midgets.

Person_one

PasturesNew wrote: »

There's a difference between what you do/say when you're talking with somebody - and what you say when they're absent.

Well, not in terms of how I would describe (or not describe) somebody's ethnicity or race. Why would there be? A I say, most of the time its not relevant. I might mention that my friend is Asian if I was describing their wedding, as it would be relevant, but wouldn't if I was talking about how I'd met them for lunch and played I spy with their child.

You're talking about a physical description, which is needed if you're pointing someone out in a crowd or similar, but mostly isn't required at all in general conversation.

I find that white people insert descriptors of race/ethnicity far more often when talking about non-white people than they ever do when talking about other white people, and I genuinely don't think they even notice that they're doing it! People will talk about the lovely Asian shopkeeper, or the friendly black nurse, or that their doctor is Polish when they never would have felt the need to mention if those people were white.