Got told off by everyone today

I must have missed those, volver

No one alive today, even if they're 100, can not know that the N word is offensive as it always has been.

My late mother died aged 91 and never used that word - in her youth Coloured would have been polite and respectful, but never the N word.

It's always been derogatory and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Oakdryad I’m not sure a slave bracelet is the same as a slave bangle. Slave bracelets were often worn round the ankle with the owners name on, whereas slave bangles were mainly used as currency or to show off your wealth. Slave bracelet is definitely more derogatory.

BTW Apparently middle aged white women are more likely to consider the use of certain words as being offensive. Maybe we are just more sensitive and wish to respect other’s feelings as we perceive them.

n*** brown was on paint colour charts, as far as I know.
Presumably the company didnt know that peoples mothers never used the term. 1

Interesting BiscuitMuncher.

I was wondering if the term has been promulgated by American GIs and found this extract from the book American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century

African American troops developed black power styles of dress ... [including] the wearing of "slave" bracelets.

tinyurl.com/yckexnh2

If people are genuinely “confused” about which terms to use why not take a few minutes on google to update yourselves about “person colour”, “mixed heritage’ etc. not too taxing I’d have thought….

OakDryad, you are back to slave bracelets again, a sign of ownership, which is different from slave bangles.

I referred to an Indian family and my GD recently returned from the USA jumped on me and said, native people.

... seems faintly odd to me. We're all native people, native to somewhere anyway.

A family have bought a house opposite me as a second (holiday) home. They are from southern India - they told me so when we got chatting. If it was relevant during the course of a conversation, I'd mention the fact, if not, I wouldn't.

But I'd certainly not refer to them as 'the natives' which just doesn't sound right at all. Not to me.

It's increasingly difficult to get it right and I'm not sure those that correct you are always right either...

My ex is deeply offended by most terms.
He prefers to be 'Mulatto' (mule coloured, I think) much to his white, middle class mothers annoyance. (Or possibly because of it, but that's a whole different thread)

It's quite worryingly easy to cause offence these days without meaning to at all.

No it doesn’t mean that MissA
Mulatto means mixed heritage.
It’s Spanish. Usually means European and N African heritage.

I expect it refers to ‘mule’ which means cross.
A mule is a horse crossed with a donkey.
You can have mule birds too.
It’s not particularly a nice term (to my mind) as ‘mules’ are always infertile (not a bad thing in itself; I hope that you get my drift!)

henetha

It's quite worryingly easy to cause offence these days without meaning to at all.

See my post…..at 10.05.52

Well, it's his preferred way of being referred to, regardless of whether others see it as nice or not.

Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you MissA
Of course it’s his choice

Yes, Lucca, you are absolutely right, and I will. Thank you.

The word mule probably comes from mullato, anyway, and not the way I’ve explained it.
I’m not pretending to be an etymological expert here!

Apparently not.
I mean, who does he think he is, using words others don't like to describe himself?

I'm not offended.
I just looked up mulatto, and there is a mulatto land crab, apparently.

A mixed heritage land crab.

Well, at least it doesn’t mean he names himself after a donkey (or crab even)

25Avalon

Oakdryad I’m not sure a slave bracelet is the same as a slave bangle. Slave bracelets were often worn round the ankle with the owners name on, whereas slave bangles were mainly used as currency or to show off your wealth. Slave bracelet is definitely more derogatory.

BTW Apparently middle aged white women are more likely to consider the use of certain words as being offensive. Maybe we are just more sensitive and wish to respect other’s feelings as we perceive them.

Apparently middle aged white women are more likely to consider the use of certain words as being offensive.

Not so. My Black daughter and in-laws would be offended by the term s***e bangles and the N word.

I examine an oral exam and if the reading extract the student is using as a stimulus has a racially offensive word in it, they use the initial and skip the actual reading of the word. Sensitivity isn't hard.

volver

Or, alternatively, don't refer to the colour of anyone's skin at all. Then you don't have to worry about it.

Yes, I agree.

Some time ago I got an email survey from the British Library about their services.

Seven questions about that, followed by a question asking about my ethnic origin.

There was a note that if anyone had any questions about the survey they could email email address

So, I decided to ask why in a survey about the services they asked me about my ethnic origin.

I got a prompt reply stating that as the British Library is funded by the government that they are required to ask.

Just that.

I left it at that, but I did wonder if the information would be processed and used in any way or whether it was just a box ticking exercise that they were required to ask the question so they did.

More generally I wonder about forms often asking this. Does it help people? Or is it a sort of form-filling apartheid where students go into a class accepting each other and skin colour is only noticed when a lecturer asks them each to fill in a form and says that it is very important that they put their ethnic origin.

I wonder for how long it will go on.

It seems to parallel the story of the lady who got a PhD and on that basis had got a job at a high-tech company and she had put forward an idea for a project.

The company board were meeting.

Her manager got a phone call asking for her to go along to the meeting.

Thrilled that her idea was going to be discussed with her, when she arrived she was asked to make the tea.

She had been chosen for that task because she was a woman. Nothing to do with her PhD qualification.

Shite bangles? (sorry)

The point here is that unless someone is openly trumpeting out an offensive term, refusing to be corrected, or proud of their ability to "tell it how it is", then it's a learning curve, and we all have to learn.

Mul***o is an offensive word. As are others that were developed to define the amount of Blackness in a person. There were very specific terms developed. Racism isn't an accident. It is a specific construct.

I just don't understand the need to define someone by skin colour.

His choice.
He is very well able to decide what he chooses to be called, so...