Got told off by everyone today

It is quite horrific to think a term like that was deemed acceptable.
It shows how deeply engrained racism is/was.
Obviously these terms need to be obliterated from common parlance, but again, I've not met anyone who isnt prepared to be put right.

" It's important to understand the meaning behind the terms we use to address people and to keep updated and willing to refresh our language so we use appropriate and respectful terms.

It’s also imperative to remember that individuals will have their own particular preferences as to how they would describe themselves, and how they would wish to be described.

Identity is extremely personal. You should listen, educate yourself, learn, and politely ask about preferences, if in doubt. "

From -
www.lawsociety.org.uk/en/topics/ethnic-minority-lawyers/a-guide-to-race-and-ethnicity-terminology-and-language

I have two beautiful gold bangles that my husband bought for me in Sri Lanka some years ago. I worked with many Bengali children in the school I taught in, and I always admired the lovely bangles that some of the mothers and also some of our bilingual assistants wore, so my husband bought me two on our visit to Sri Lanka. I love them and wear them quite often. However, I’ve only ever thought of them as bangles, and have never heard the term slave bangles.

Some years ago I was at a family function. My sister described a colour as nigger brown. I’m not sure how I remained standing, I was just so shocked. I explained that that term is not acceptable, but she had difficulty understanding why as it had been a common descriptor in our childhood. I should add that my sister had never worked since her marriage and was rather cocooned in her life at home. She also suffered from mental health difficulties long term and the modernisation of life had passed her by. Even knowing this I was still very shocked to hear it.

I’ve never heard of the term, but personally even if I had I wouldn’t refer to them as that, as the word slave is loaded and likely to offend. However I have definitely made slip ups in the past and been told off my sons.

I wouldn’t get offended if someone called me a Taff as I’m Welsh, my friend friend who’s Irish doesn’t get offended about being called a paddy either.

I could Google what to call different people's heritage, the correct term for various disabilities and what to call the different genders but I probably wouldn't remember everything I read. I find it difficult enough to remember day to day stuff without everything I read on Google so I try to avoid using any of the terminology just in case I offend. It is made more difficult by the various groups that you might be referring to arguing amongst themselves about how they wish to be referred.
No matter what is deemed to be the correct terminology (normally thought up by people who don't even fit the group themselves) I would always try not to be offensive, to try to learn to the best of my ability and to apologise profusely without excuse if I get it wrong. If you did that Biscuitmuncher then try to be kinder to yourself in that it was just simply a mistake.

The guest explained that they did trade with Kenya and so they had changed the name so as to avoid giving offence.

Which proves that when it was commonly used it was known to be offensive.

Rightly so.
Institutionalised racism cuts far deeper than using the wrong word, too.
It has profound consequences across society.

Urmstongran

MissAdventure

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

I used to be sent to the haberdashery shop by my mother when I was in junior school for a reel of ‘ngg* brown’ cotton MissA it was so described on the paper at the base of the reel.

I remember back in the early 1960s the BBC Home Service being on the radio while I was having breakfast.

I remember they had a bit where a man from the BBC was talking with a guest from some organisation that was involved in specifying the names of colours for colour swatches for fabric.

The topic was that the organisation had changed the name of one of the colours from, er, ... to nut brown.

The BBC man questioned why this had been done.

The guest explained that they did trade with Kenya and so they had changed the name so as to avoid giving offence.

Of course it is.
Nobody is denying that.

Urmstongran

MissAdventure

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

I used to be sent to the haberdashery shop by my mother when I was in junior school for a reel of ‘ngg* brown’ cotton MissA it was so described on the paper at the base of the reel.

Yes, exactly. Institutionalised racism.

volver

Other than Urmstongrans stepfather.

I don't believe I've had the pleasure of knowing him.

The n word just comes from negro.
So, in itself, it’s not offensive - it’s been made offensive by its usage.
Same as the p word.
Nothing wrong with shortening the word Pakistani.
But again it’s it’s past usage that has rendered it unacceptable and unusable.

I grew up at a time when the p word was almost always used with ‘filthy, f***ing ———-b*****’

And I haven’t forgotten Harry Wales not so long ago referring to an army colleague as ‘our little p* friend’
Disgusting

?

Other than Urmstongrans stepfather.

I don't know of anyone at all who does refer to a person's colour.
I haven't known of it for years.

I can't recall when I have found it necessary to describe anybody by the colour of their skin in day to day life.

If you are required to do so as part of your profession, find out what people want to be called. Otherwise, its not something you ever have to worry about.

The dog in the Dambusters had a name that we would never use now. Its not a competition to show how words that used to be acceptable, aren't any longer.

My 90y old stepfather (a gentleman in all respects) thinks he is polite when saying ‘the coloured chap across the way’. I suppose he could just say ‘the chap at no. 38’.

I think it's very difficult to know what is acceptable and what isn't if you're older.
But I don't think , even if I'd heard the term, that I would call them slave bangles.

MissAdventure

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

I used to be sent to the haberdashery shop by my mother when I was in junior school for a reel of ‘ngg* brown’ cotton MissA it was so described on the paper at the base of the reel.

Agreed MissA referred to the post of
MissAdventure Wed 11-May-22 10:31:38

I'm slow at typing!

Agreed, MissA

I dreamt about this the other night, oddly.
Someone in my dream mentioned wedding rings and I referred to them as "slave bangles". Strange, it's not a term I'd ever use.

Good post, Dickens
I think that some people might get confused about what is current terminology. We all should know that 'coloured person' is offensive but people who do know what is and isn't correct use 'person of colour' which is not.
The PC and non-PC terms change so frequently older people can be forgiven for not keeping up especially if they are not out at work keeping up with changing terminology.

At work to one of the residents :
Me - are you ok there? Shall I get you some ppc?

Resident : what's ppc?

Me, moves closer to protect dignity : its personal protective clothing, you can put it on to protect your clothes whilst eating as it will cover them.

Resident shouting ; Nooo! I want a bib like Maud's got on!

25Avalon

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

I'm not sure 25Avalon I think the terms are, at least, confused and used interchangeably:

An example of slave bangles (as opposed to bracelets) appears in the OED:

1931 Nancy Cunard Black Man & White Ladyship The thick old Congo ivories she thinks, are slave bangles.

Cunard was an avid collector and wearer of slave bangles. But then there is this:

Jane Marcus has argued that Cunard’s bracelets, or her ‘ivory shackles’ as they were once described in the press, are a part of an empathetic performance of slavery: ‘a fashionable display of political solidarity with black oppression.’ Cunard fails here, however, to acknowledge the colonial exploitation that brought these objects onto European soil—a criticism made years earlier in a letter she received from one of her mother’s friends in response to Black Man, White Ladyship:

There is another thing which astonished me, in your mention of Negro Art, and ivory bangles, for which you have a very pronounced cult, and which I think you ought, now that you champion them, to drop...You know perhaps that it has been calculated that every tusk has cost the life of at least 10 Negroes.

Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online

sro.sussex.ac.uk

Are you aware of the origin of the word yellow in the way that it is used in the song The Yellow Rose of Texas?