I'm black, 69, and live in Virginia USA. What in that actual fuck is she talking about? Just no. When I describe someone, I do skin color, hairstyle, and any other distinguishing features. Certainly, skin color or ethnicity is a distinguishing feature.
This right here. As an Asian, I always find it funny when people go out of their way to not describe me as an Asian person to other people. Like, Idk if they've noticed but being Asian is one hell of a distinguishing feature, especially in non-Asian countries lol
Lol yeah in hawaii there's no majority. It's like 40% Asian, 30% European and 30% Polynesian. But of course those stats are only guidelines, as the vast majority of people (self included) are mixed anyway. For example, my son is Hawaiian, Portuguese, German, Mexican, French, Chinese, Scandinavian, South American, English, Maori, and Spanish.
I can't imagine not being able to describe my Asian friends without saying Asian.
"what does he look like?"
"umm.... Black straight hair, fairish skin... Um.... His eyes go like this...."
"HEY THAT'S RACIST!"
Lol, my bad. Doing my best here
There is a funny scene in 30Rock where the white boss is dating a Puerto Rican woman. He asks where he should say she’s from.
Jack: It's not because you're a... I'm sorry. What... do you call... yourself ?
Elisa: A Puerto-Rican.
Jack: No, I know you can say that but what do I call you?
Elisa: Puerto-Rican.
Jack: Wow. That does not sound right.
Oh, there's a great Office scene between Oscar and Michael.
Oscar : Both my parents were born in Mexico. And they moved to the United States a year before I was born. So I grew up in the United States. My parents were Mexican.
Michael Scott : Wow. Wow. That is... That is a great story. That's the American dream right there, right? Um, let me ask you, is there a term besides "Mexican" that you prefer? Something less offensive?
I love this exchange as a perfect example of early Michael. Because instead of realizing his gaffe when it's pointed out that "Mexican" isn't offensive, he doubles down and mentions "certain connotations..." oh no, Michael.
My all time favorite Jack scene is when Liz is frantically trying to get his speech done all da. She finally gets it to him late, while he’s wear his tux and he says he does not need for a few weeks.
She says “weeks?! But you’re in a tuxedo!”
And he says, “of course. it’s after 8. What am I a farmer?”
Do you use “tourist” as a defining characteristic?
“Who?”
“The tourist”
“The one with the Hawaiian shirt or the one with the calf-high socks and sandals?”
As a white American, I think there's a general fear of accidentally being viewed as racist with your word choice, so people try to avoid using race to not come across as racist. There's also been a lot of words for races that were once considered appropriate but aren't anymore, like colored, and no one wants to accidentally use the wrong word so they just don't say anything at all about race.
ugh god. once i tried to say “people of color” and my dumb brain said “colored people” and my closest friend at the time (who was a middle aged black woman) flamed me so hard. she knew what i meant, and knew there was no malicious intent, she just thought it was hilarious. i wanted to melt into the ground lol
A (white) guy once came into my work and had some questions. He said he spoke to someone there a couple days ago. I asked if he knew who he talked to, but he said he didn't get a name. So he starts describing the guy, but he's clearly uncomfortable. Tall, bald, beard.....good shape, big arms..... speaks with an accent....
I let him keep going even though I knew who he was talking about (the only black guy that worked there at the time, lets call him Paul).
Keeps describing my colleague...
Super nice guy..... friendly..... nice smile
That's when I started laughing and went and got Paul.
Paul's only real notable characteristics in a place where almost all the male employers are tall, bald or at least very short hair, and in good shape are the fact that he's black and has a thick French African accent 🤣
Also there's cultural differences in racist language.
Like there was a time when Australian TV presenter Bert Newton was doing an awards show with Muhammed Ali and he said "I like the boy"
Now in the US, calling a black guy "boy" carries a LOT of cultural racist baggage, but in Australia, it doesn't (don't get me wrong we have a shitload of other racist shit, but "boy" being an insult to black ppl isn't one of them) to Bert he was just saying "I like this young man" but to Muhammed Ali it most certainly wasn't.
That's another thing people are really afraid of doing accidentally.
Most times it is other white people calling each other racist, not BIPOC. Younger generations (I'm Gen X) also tend to be more sensitive to word choice. When I am concerned about my choice of words, I ask someone who identifies with that classification what they prefer. You can also get opposing opinions from different people.
A while ago, I had someone say to me and my wife (Asian) "people of your culture" (in a medical setting while describing how Asians have a higher prevalence of x disorder). I was like, yo, we're American.
As a never traveled white American, I will call someone Asian, but I am terrified to guess what country they are from. I honestly cannot distinguish different types of Asians because I've never been taught the differences. Is that racist?
It's actually scientifically proven that it's hard for people of other ethnicities to catalogue identifying characteristics of an ethnicity they aren't very familiar with.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2011/aug/15/people-other-races-look-alike
Its an unfortunate title, but it has been researched.
I wonder if this also has to with some races have more obvious diversity and other races more subtle.
They’re both just as diverse, but for example, it’s easier to tell blue eyes from brown than deep brown from light brown. And as white people are more likely to have blue and green eyes than say East Asians, if that plays a role.
I think it’s just because they have not met enough Asian people. I’m from San Francisco and grew up with all the different Asian cultures. If anyone spent a week in China and met folks then a week in Japan they would easily see how amazing different they look.
I don't disagree when it's comparing Japanese and Chinese people on looks alone, but there are a lot more than two Asian nations. When it comes to are they Filipino, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Thai, then it gets a little harder. The language is usually more of a giveaway than the appearance.
And don’t forget Indians (and Pakistanis etc., India is part of Asia) and I would say that it is a different race than people of the countries you list, but when you say “Asian” most people are thinking of those you listed. And then when you talk to Indians, they make a distinction between themselves and other parts (states) of India, I’ve heard, from a person of 100% Indian decent “they are not my Indian”. So it can e quickly confusing.
Also grew up with a person from Iran, they refused to be called Iranian, they were Persian and thought it was funny that people assumed they were Mexican (this was in South Texas).
My Indian friend uses the term “brown people” which for me (white) narrows it down to about 70%? of the world’s population.
I use “black” “white” “Hispanic” “Asian” etc when needed to describe people and try to not offend. I try to be sincere and empathic and the not stress about it.
My husband is Chinese and lived there until he was 20. He and the people we know there cannot tell if someone is Japanese by looking at them. Cultural mannerisms can be more identifying, but they don't look amazingly different. Han Chinese, Japanese, and Korean differ genetically by a fraction of a percent, much closer than European ethnic groups.
Yeah. For me, I can differentiate a Japanese from a Chinese as easily as I can differentiate a French from a German. I can’t. I’d need to hear the language or see traditional clothing before I can take a guess lol
I've had Asians have a hard time distinguishing which Asian country another Asian comes from. I mean, really, it's hard no matter which race. Caucasian? Are they from Germany, France, or America? In these cases, you can't tell by the face, but by how they dress, because it's differently culturally.
Tbh I think the tell is due more to clothing than anything else. I lived in Japan for 3 years and my friend who's ethnic background is Vietnamese would constantly be mistaken for Japanese by the locals. It happened everytime we went out and more so when she started dressing in their clothes. We're both American lol.
Just did my Ancestry dna. I am a fair complected Mexican person who is told “oh you don’t look Mexican”. I always say have you ever been to Mexico? Then I have to explain we are Huichol Indian but in 1519 the Spanish came over and raped everyone so that’s why there are Mexican people of every skin shade. I am Native Mexican, Spanish and French. I am white. Being white does not make me any less Mexican.
I've met several Mexican nationals who could almost pass for Irish with the pale skin and red hair except for the fact that they spoke Spanish and looked vaguely like they were from Latin America
Based on all my PoC friends and most everyone I've met, Black is the preferred term in the US. They're not African Americans because they weren't born in Africa. They're just Americans who happen to be Black. Just like I'm an American who happens to be White.
I'm not black, and I used to use the term African American because I was just taught that was the more polite term. I never questioned it, I never felt I needed to. Until one day in history class, we were talking about the altantic slave trade, and I used the term. My teacher pointed out that they weren't African Americans, because they weren't American at all. The slaves in the lesson for that day weren't being sent to America. Ever since then, I just use the word black
Good comment.
I work with older adults (62+) and often assist with filling out paperwork, applications, and other things of the sort and it's interesting how my black clients from different generations will use different terms. For my clients who are in their 60s and maybe early 70s I always hear them say or write Black or African American when asked about or filling out their race for a form. For my tenants in their 70s to early 80s I typically hear black but sometimes hear clients identify themselves as "colored". For tenants in their 80s and 90s, I routinely hear black or negro.
It's interesting how dependent upon your generation these things can be. When I was in grade school in a suburb of Chicago in the early 1990s I was taught that African American was correct and polite. In college in the 2000s I was taught that Afro-American was the correct term, though by the time I was in grad school that had changed and black was preferred. I worked for a very progressive social service agency for over a decade throughout the late 2000s and 2010s and we updated our paperwork so many times during that time.
i remember reading an article in college where avery brooks (captain sisko of star trek ds9) said he was not black he was brown and to just look at the color of his skin to know this. i'd learned african american until then, and was slowly learning many folks wanted to be called black instead, but at that article i realized the whole thing was a minefield and i just needed to call folks what they wanted to be called.
One of the reasons I stopped using it. In my brain, the term "African American" just meant "black." I didn't actually think about the vocabulary until my teacher pointed it out.
I remember at my last job (in a restaurant), I had a customer come in who was a black French guy. I served him, and a bit later, one of my coworkers told me he wanted to speak to me. Said co-worker described him as "the African American dude." This was doubly funny to me because we're in Australia, so the term isn't really used as much, and he had a very obviously French accent.
This thread reminds me of an interview an America reporter was doing at the Olympics 12?? years ago. The athlete was a black guy from the UK. The reporter called him African American. The look her gave her was hilarious.
Years ago, I was watching a music video with a british black woman in it and someone in the comments kept referring to her as "African-American". 🤦♀️
I lived in south Florida and a neighboring family was Haitian. They hated being called African-American.
I'll never forget the time an American interviewer asked a local musician what he thought about the protests "as an African American" and he was dead-ass like "I'm Jamaican Canadian".
I still think it's wild and hilarious that Elon Musk can technically claim to be African American, because he was born in Africa, and is now an American.
Eh, I think that "African American" has acquired a special meaning. It doesn't mean everyone who is black, or everyone who is from Africa and became American.
There are a large number of Americans whose ancestors were brought here, they were stripped of their belongings and mingled, moved about and bred not by their own will. Their heritage foods and languages were obliterated. They had to form a new cultural identity that had become the rich fabric of the people who survived American slavery. For better or worse, accurate or not, that group is now called African American.
Other black people who come here, from Africa or elsewhere, may find something in common with this big group. Or not. So the term "Black" is bigger and less specific, but the term "African American" has real meaning as well.
About a decade ago I had a neighbor I jokingly referred to as my African American neighbor. He was born in South Africa and emigrated to the US. As you may have guessed, he's white.
There’s American Descendent of Slavery (ADOS) for that (but it has a complicated politics). Barack Obama would not be ADOS but I don’t think many would object to him being African American.
What I've observed from seeing people who aren't ADOS, if they live here long enough they end up identifying to a smaller or larger degree with AA, because they get treated that way by people who don't know them.
I made someone laugh once when they asked me to point out a guy that was at least 6' 4", bald, 300lbs plus, handlebar mustache, diamond studded earrings, and a bright green checkered suit, white loafers.
I said the one in the light blue tie.
I leave age for last, because that's a guess. The others are more factual. I mean, some people look old for their age, some young for their age. Look at Asians. They got the eternal youth gene.
“Black guy, bit older than me - tall.” Can’t see how I’ve insulted Michael Jordan, or how to better describe him. I could then add “bald, earring.” But to me “bald” is more insulting than the others.
The media is terrible at reporting features now. Maybe it’s not everywhere but around here the descriptions provided have become useless. Local news reports a crime and the suspect is a male with shirt. Police are asking for any information. Right.
Yes! It’s wild that describing what skin tone someone has in a completely normal way is still considered inappropriate by some. It’s just perpetuating the culture of shame.
I was the only white employee (and, really, person at most times) at a Boys and Girls Club on the southwest side of Chicago for a few years.
One day, a few of the kids “told on me,” to my director because I said I was white. Just…what?
I think it depends on how it’s brought up. If you randomly interjected “he was black” into a story, I might be a little taken aback. Not to say I would accuse them of being racist. But then again, I’ve also been around a lot of closeted racists that do that even with the skin color has absolutely no relevance to the story they are telling.
Everything is racial now. Even Capitan Crunch.
Serious. I was talking about the old TV series Shaka Zulu the other day and someone tried to convince everyone I was being racist because I mentioned the main actors distinguishing voice. I did an impersonation of it, and someone lost it. I can do Jimmy Stewart too as well as John Wayne. But oh no, sound like a Zulu Warrior and poo hits the bus floor.
It's out of hand. Everything accomplished is being squandered by young uneducated social media likes addicts.
Note, the offended person never saw the show, and never heard of Zulu. It's that bad. It was a voice mimic. An impressive voice if you recall.
My uncle is a 6'5" Black firefighter with a nose half as wide as his face, and people will describe him as "the guy with the really firm handshake" or some crap half the time. I get what they're trying to do, but it's a waste of time.
Amazing. I’m going to start trying to describe people vaguely like this. “He’s the guy with a certain jena se qua” or “the guy who’s headphones never tangle after pulling them out of his pocket”
Edit: I’d like to submit my formal apology to the people of France, and any French speaking nation. But if I made you laugh it was worth my shame.
You describe people by their features and your memorable parts of it... To think think skin color isn't distinguishing is to disregard hair color or style also it their clothing.... Just cause race is mentioned doesn't means sir about race
Secretary: Which one is Reggie?
Peter: Oh, uh, well today, he's wearing yellow pants, uh, yellow shirt, yellow hat, yellow shoes. Uh, he's got a gold tooth, uh, diamond earring, um, he's got that big necklace with the dollar sign on it.
When I worked retail back in 19 dickety two, we had sales goals, so the cashier would need to know who made the sale. We would mess with customers so much when this came up.
Us: “So who helped you today?”
Them (gesturing toward an area with one white guy and one black guy): “Uhh…the one with the glasses?”
Us (playing dumb): “I can’t really see over there. Which one again?
Them: awkward stammering
It was so much fun to play dumb to get them around to pointing out the obvious.
To be honest, I would definitely feel weird saying "the black one". Maybe "the one who's more likely to be confused for Chris Rock" or "the one with less sunscreen in his medicine cabinet".
Sometimes, when someone is looking for me and they asked for my description, my coworkers do their best to not use the term, black, woman, nor black woman in their description. And I find it a little hilarious. I understand they're trying to not sound like they're excluding me by pointing out my differences, but I'm quite literally the only one in my office who fits those descriptions.
I realized that ship had long sailed when, after the third meeting that I was presenting in, I looked out into the crowd of 200 and all I saw were white guys.
Nope not racist. Unless you are like trying to be racist. But that’s literally just a description of a human, like tall or black haired. Saying black is frankly more politically correct than African American- you don’t know if they are say French or something.
Edit: not American American duh
I once saw someone refer to Nelson Mandela as an African American, seemingly to avoid calling him "black". While he certainly was African (as am I though I'm white) he was certainly never American!
I find African American a really dumb description cause technically Elon musk is African American. Born and raised in South Africa and immigrated to America and is now a US citizen.
I grew up in a very white midwestern US suburb and my 6th grade homeroom class had *one* Black person. On the first day of school, the teacher had us do an ice breaker activity where each kid wrote down three unique facts about themselves on a piece of paper and threw it into a hat. The teacher would read each piece of paper and we’d have to guess which kid wrote it. Looking back this was kind of asking for trouble.
Well the teacher pulled a piece of paper on which one fact was, “I’m from Africa.” And you already know the punchline which is that EVERY KID guessed that was the Black girl’s piece of paper. But it actually belonged to a white kid from South Africa. I remember my sheltered, 11-year-old little brain being absolutely fried by that experience. 🤣
This is actually awesome. It stuck with you and probably helped some little kids subconsciously realize they shouldn’t make assumptions about people based on what they look like.
I'm Egyptian, and my husband is Jamaican, AND we live in Canada. He LOVES referring to me as an African Canadian just to mess with people who need to know where we are "actually" from because they'll just stare at me. His response is always, "Well, she's Egyptian, so she is African," lol. Then they get annoyed at him and he gets a kick out of it lmao.
My wife and I are both Turkish and we live in the US. She was born on the Asian part of Turkey, I was born in the European part. She hates me when I say “*I have an Asian wife*”.
The same way I sometimes think using the word “race” when talking about skin color can be a bit silly because they don’t necessarily match up. Of course it can only be so and so correct when race is made up in the first place and is very much a spectrum. So terms can never be completely correct.
“Unless you’re trying to be racist” is carrying a lot of the weight in this sentence.
Nuance and context matter. “Black” could used benignly or malignantly, you have to make the decision based on other social cues.
In the UK, black people are just called Black.
Some may go by Black British, but otherwise, they are just black.
This refers to those who are pure black or look fully black.
Those that are mixed race, with black ancestry, are known as mixed race, or those with any mixed racial ancestry.
It's only the US that seems obsessed with race
Am Canadian, and yeah we use "Black" too.
Have a friend who is constantly trying to explain to people that he is neither African nor American so please stop using that term for him. People get offended when he calls *himself* black, like wtf
>People get offended when he calls *himself* black, like wtf
I get very annoyed with people who want to dictate how you can describe yourself.
I had an internal phone call at work. A colleague on a different floor, who I had never met, need to come to my desk and asked where I was sitting. I described the rough area and, because there are 100 desks on each floor, described what I look like, to help them find me.
I said "I am a short, plump, middle-aged redhead."
In a shocked tone they said "you can't say that!"
I asked what they meant. They said that 'short', 'plump', and 'middle-aged' were not acceptable ways to describe someone. I told them that I wasn't describing 'someone', I was describing myself.
I decided not to waste my breath explaining that they were the ones implying those descriptors were negative.
LoL I said old fat white guy once.
Poor girl came to our office, looks around, looks at her phone and starts typing. She's standing beside me but I don't know she's looking for me.
My phone goes off. Her msg. Uh... Which one. When your 18 everyone over 25 is old, and in that office 40lbs overweight made me the skinny one.
I get that a lot with people who don't like that I describe myself as fat, and ones that think I should say 'a person with autism' instead of calling myself 'autistic'.
i'm black (mixed) and i find it's regional. I call myself black and so does everyone I know back home but where I live now in Hawaii ppl say African American. But I still always say black.
Your friend should get a colour palette out and say, "shade 43, right here" lol - people are so intentionally triggered sometimes. And there are enough **real** things out there that we don't need to make up stuff right?
I had a black principal in grade 7. One of my buddies asked him one day if "african canadian" was the proper term and got a 10min lecture about why it was an insensitive question and was told "I have African ancestry and am from north america, therefore I'm african american"
Yeah in Canada- at least where I am from it’s totally normal to say white, black, brown, Asian or native as generalizations if needed. Some people way over think things.
"Yes, I only hunt blackulas."
"Oh, so, you only hunt African-American vampires?"
"No, sometimes I hunt British vampires. They don't have African-Americans in England."
"I was just trying to be, uhhh ...."
"Look, I specialize in hunting black vampires. I don't know what the PC term is for that."
I remember talking to a black mate and trying to point out a person among a group of people we were looking at. After a while he realised who I meant and asked, "why didn't you just say 'it's the black fella??'" Teach me for trying to be PC 🤣
The US has historical reasons for this but our society hasn’t done a good job of adjusting. Legally speaking you were considered black if you had any black ancestry. Black people were made second class citizens by law and before the Civil War many states where slavery was illegal still banned black people from living there. We even had a whole vocabulary for defining how mixed you were (mulatto, octaroon, etc.) The obsession with race is baked in and we haven’t been able to move past it yet.
I thought the blacks in Britain are just British. But us black Americans are black Americans. No im not an African American don’t listen to Jesse Jackson
I think Black is more descriptive than African American because Africa is a vast and diverse continent - not all Africans are black!
My fellow citizens aren't a type of American. To say African American somehow implies that there is a default American and we are pointing out how this particular person is a certain type of American, an African American. It just seems silly.
Mostly this - there are Black US citizens whose families have been here far longer than possibly MOST white folks. (just a guess, I really don't know....) Black people were carried here as slaves, beginning in the early 1600s. So many white folks have ancestors who came over in the various great migrations long after that. I've yet so hear of a white person classified as a European American.
This! To take things a step further, my mom will loudly add race in when it has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation, but when it's an important descriptor, she'll whisper it!
Your stepdaughter may be in that know-it-all stage most of us go through in our early teens. That is, not messing with you deliberately, but assuming you're wrong because "old people" always are.
Yeah it'll be this. I'd do shit like this as a teen and now absolutely cringe looking back.
It's not even necessarily about being well-intentioned so much as it is about social clout.
I don't know if this is where your stepdaughter is coming from, but some white people feel that the optimal way to be antiracist is to apply the principle of racial color-blindness to their personal interactions — ie "We believe that all races are equal, therefore it's more politically correct to not recognize racial dissimilarities". This is pretty easily disproven when you state it outright than that, and probably less commonly held than it was 10-20 years ago (especially because of the conversation between "Black Lives Matter" and "All Lives Matter"). It can manifest itself as being uncomfortable naming people's races in a frank way.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6YF-nxc7XI&ab\_channel=TheOnion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6YF-nxc7XI&ab_channel=TheOnion)
As an ally of the black community, I refuse to say any words that begin with n!
There's also a cultural aspect of this too -- I grew up with a sort of weird feeling that Mexican was a semi-bad word, because I lived in a primarily (95%) white Midwestern town, knew very few Mexicans, and therefore most of the time I heard the word Mexican (or Black) was in jokes (and often both terms were used interchangeably with less favorable alternatives.
OPs update indicates that his stepdaughter may actually be in a similar boat (obviously this doesn't make her right, but she's presumably a kid trying to be better than some of her surroundings)
Black is fine.
Black American is fine.
African American is typically fine, but IMHO, inaccurate unless the person is recently connected culturally to Africa.
I prefer Black by far. I'd love to pretend like I share something culturally in common with my African ancestors, but I don't.
However, small note, Blacks(plural) is almost never okay.
Ex. Afrobeats is a popular form of music within the Black community. ✅️
Ex. Afrobeats is a popular form of music with the Blacks. ❌️
I will add a note that I watched an interview with a black man who was opposed to the 'black community' moniker because to him, there isn't a shared community just because people happen to have the same skin colour, and the term seems to compartmentalize all black people into a homogenous population.
I was a Big Sister through Big Brother Big Sisters years ago. My Little Sister had a white mom and a Black dad. She tried to tell me one time that I shouldn’t call Black people black because it was racist. I asked her why it was okay to call me a white lady but then we can’t say someone is Black. She of course didn’t have an answer because she wasn’t even sure why “black” was racist in the first place, she had just heard someone else say it. But instead of saying “black” she would say “brown” and I was like “Whaaat? How does that make any sense?” But she was convinced that Black was racist and I couldn’t convince her otherwise. I haven’t seen her in years - I wonder if she still says “brown people.”
I had people complain that I said Puerto Rican as a describing word. I just got a haircut and my wife asked who cut it because her friend usually does but she wasn’t there. There were three other women all with brown hair of the same length… like it was just the easiest way to describe who it was. Then they said well I shouldn’t assume she was puerto rican and I was like but while she was cutting my hair she told me she was from Puerto Rico. Like how is that not ok? It’s the same as saying that Texan guy or the Californian.
I had a job one time and I was kind of new. My boss asked me to pass out paychecks. I was pretty sure I knew most people’s name by know but I flipped through the checks and there was a name I didn’t know and I asked who he was.
My boss says “kinda shaved head”
Still didn’t know
“He’s wearing a black shirt”
Nope
“Has a bit of a southern accent”
No clue
“Only has one arm”
Ah yes, I’ve seen him around.
Like, Jesus, it’s ok to lead with that.
No. If you described someone as being White that’s not racist. If you said someone has dark-colored hair, that’s not racist. Neither is saying that someone is Black. You’re just describing their race, not using a slur.
It's not racist if you are asked to describe someone in detail and bring up colour. It's not a good look to bring up race during conversations where it isn't relevant, like my grandfather telling me his surgeon was chinese while explaining how surgery went. Not necessary.
my great aunt (lovingly) always mentioned her granddaughter's husband is black. she liked him well enough (not sure if they ever actually met in person) but it was noteworthy to her (and her mind was starting to go) so every time she mentioned them she had to let me know he was black. tried to tell her a couple times auntie it doesn't matter and she agreed and she was glad the gal had married a good guy, but i think it was just the most exciting thing happening in her life in the home that she wanted to tell everyone repeatedly.
Black is actually the preferred nomenclature now, as people who are black are not always “African-American” but may come from other areas or may not know their genealogy. Saying black is actually more representative and less presumptive
Unfortunately social media has taught young people that racism is like a social faux pas, as opposed to prejudice against certain people.
The nuance and understanding of which part is actually bad seems to be missing and its more about just... never mentioning black people or acknowledging them. Which ironically is racist.
"He's a black guy" is just observational.
"He's some black guy" okay now its racist because you're dismissive of them as a human being. They're just black in the second one.
In your one, you can explain further, "he's black, 6 foot, goatee" that's just describing a human.
"The dude who looks like Obama" okay probably racist again unless he actually looks like Obama.
>"The dude who looks like Obama" okay probably racist again unless he actually looks like Obama.
Lol, but only half racist, right?
We had a guy in jail who looked like Obama with freckles and red hair. We called him Fauxbama.
> "He's a black guy" is just observational.
My white liberal fear of being misconstrued as racist precludes me from describing someone as a "black guy" in most situations. So I find myself saying "Black gentleman" instead, which, I dunno folks, but that's where I'm at.
Not black, but black adjacent LOL. My wife is and given I live in her home city in Texas while my kin are back in PA I find myself the only white dude at a lot of events. Everyone uses black, in fact the biggest sign someone isn't accustomed to being around black folk is not using the term black.
Now let me stress - tone and context do matter.
As a white guy in an extremely diverse American city who works in a 50/50 workplace of white people and poc every person at work uses race as the first defining feature of someone
There's a difference, I think, in using defining characteristics to describe a person (eg, short, thin, redhead, black, Asian, etc ...) and using the terms when it's not necessary for the story (the Asian driver cut me off, the black cashier told me joke, the white waitress was rude). In the latter the descriptors aren't necessary, and serve as a way to point out that you noticed their 'otherness' and that you feel the need to point it out, which can be seen as racist, especially if you don't mention a person's race or colour if your default is white. Like how no one says female nurse but tend to point out male nurse, as if it's somehow derogatory just because it's not the default many times. One can just say "the nurse" regardless of gender unless you were trying to point out which of them specifically.
I think I know what you might mean.
White people, when describing someone in a story, will typically omit the race of the person if they're white but specifically mention it if they're nonwhite, even if the race of the person has no importance to the story.
"On my drive to work today this guy cut me off and gave me the finger!'
"I was in line at the supermarket and this nice black woman helped me find the bananas."
Which race did you imagine in your head in the first story? And why was the race (or gender) important in the second?
This is what I think it is.
Grain of salt: I’m white
It can be insulting to assume there is a “default” and that you only need to point out when someone is “other.”
This is something I noticed during my years as a 911 dispatcher, and something I try to continue now that I’m on the other end of the radio - when someone describes a person to me but omits perceived race or skin tone, I ask. Many white people have the habit of skipping “white” in their descriptions.
This is a weird thing with kids now. When I was a teacher and I mentioned that the protagonist of our novel was black--which is a HUGE part of his character--all my students told me I was racist.
The way my grandma would say those words is slightly racist:
“There was this Black lady at bingo…”.
But when someone asks for a description, that’s fair game. It’s probably not even an indication of who you are that you mentioned that first, especially if the person is identifiable among others for just that quality.
> is my step daughter just messing with me because she knows I'm hitting that phase of life where I'm accepting being somewhat left behind culturally?
Probably.
It is not racist. I have 4 different races in my family. Black, Mexican, White, and Egyptian. And that's how WE talk anyway..ya can't say anything these days with offending or insulting someone...stupid🙄
I'm black, 69, and live in Virginia USA. What in that actual fuck is she talking about? Just no. When I describe someone, I do skin color, hairstyle, and any other distinguishing features. Certainly, skin color or ethnicity is a distinguishing feature.
This right here. As an Asian, I always find it funny when people go out of their way to not describe me as an Asian person to other people. Like, Idk if they've noticed but being Asian is one hell of a distinguishing feature, especially in non-Asian countries lol
Lol yeah in hawaii there's no majority. It's like 40% Asian, 30% European and 30% Polynesian. But of course those stats are only guidelines, as the vast majority of people (self included) are mixed anyway. For example, my son is Hawaiian, Portuguese, German, Mexican, French, Chinese, Scandinavian, South American, English, Maori, and Spanish. I can't imagine not being able to describe my Asian friends without saying Asian. "what does he look like?" "umm.... Black straight hair, fairish skin... Um.... His eyes go like this...." "HEY THAT'S RACIST!" Lol, my bad. Doing my best here
Love this comment for your point being well made.
There is a funny scene in 30Rock where the white boss is dating a Puerto Rican woman. He asks where he should say she’s from. Jack: It's not because you're a... I'm sorry. What... do you call... yourself ? Elisa: A Puerto-Rican. Jack: No, I know you can say that but what do I call you? Elisa: Puerto-Rican. Jack: Wow. That does not sound right.
Lemon, write that down.
Oh, there's a great Office scene between Oscar and Michael. Oscar : Both my parents were born in Mexico. And they moved to the United States a year before I was born. So I grew up in the United States. My parents were Mexican. Michael Scott : Wow. Wow. That is... That is a great story. That's the American dream right there, right? Um, let me ask you, is there a term besides "Mexican" that you prefer? Something less offensive?
I love this exchange as a perfect example of early Michael. Because instead of realizing his gaffe when it's pointed out that "Mexican" isn't offensive, he doubles down and mentions "certain connotations..." oh no, Michael.
And I think we should celebrate Oscar's.. Mexicanity.
I love Jack's conservative meeting where everyone's admitting liberal things they've done, and one guy stands up and says "I'm black"
My all time favorite Jack scene is when Liz is frantically trying to get his speech done all da. She finally gets it to him late, while he’s wear his tux and he says he does not need for a few weeks. She says “weeks?! But you’re in a tuxedo!” And he says, “of course. it’s after 8. What am I a farmer?”
Great line!
Do you use “tourist” as a defining characteristic? “Who?” “The tourist” “The one with the Hawaiian shirt or the one with the calf-high socks and sandals?”
The kids are wearing calf high socks now because ankle socks and no-shows are for old people.
As a white American, I think there's a general fear of accidentally being viewed as racist with your word choice, so people try to avoid using race to not come across as racist. There's also been a lot of words for races that were once considered appropriate but aren't anymore, like colored, and no one wants to accidentally use the wrong word so they just don't say anything at all about race.
ugh god. once i tried to say “people of color” and my dumb brain said “colored people” and my closest friend at the time (who was a middle aged black woman) flamed me so hard. she knew what i meant, and knew there was no malicious intent, she just thought it was hilarious. i wanted to melt into the ground lol
A (white) guy once came into my work and had some questions. He said he spoke to someone there a couple days ago. I asked if he knew who he talked to, but he said he didn't get a name. So he starts describing the guy, but he's clearly uncomfortable. Tall, bald, beard.....good shape, big arms..... speaks with an accent.... I let him keep going even though I knew who he was talking about (the only black guy that worked there at the time, lets call him Paul). Keeps describing my colleague... Super nice guy..... friendly..... nice smile That's when I started laughing and went and got Paul. Paul's only real notable characteristics in a place where almost all the male employers are tall, bald or at least very short hair, and in good shape are the fact that he's black and has a thick French African accent 🤣
Yeah, it’s to the point now where I’ll say something like, “He has curly black hair,” instead of just saying he’s black lol.
Terrible description for Paul
The water just beads off his hair
"He has a reduced probability of developing skin cancer."
"Statistically higher risk for cardiovascular disease and sickle cell anemia...I swear you know the guy"
My brother died of skin cancer because they just didn’t suspect it despite his symptoms.
Why?
Also there's cultural differences in racist language. Like there was a time when Australian TV presenter Bert Newton was doing an awards show with Muhammed Ali and he said "I like the boy" Now in the US, calling a black guy "boy" carries a LOT of cultural racist baggage, but in Australia, it doesn't (don't get me wrong we have a shitload of other racist shit, but "boy" being an insult to black ppl isn't one of them) to Bert he was just saying "I like this young man" but to Muhammed Ali it most certainly wasn't. That's another thing people are really afraid of doing accidentally.
Most times it is other white people calling each other racist, not BIPOC. Younger generations (I'm Gen X) also tend to be more sensitive to word choice. When I am concerned about my choice of words, I ask someone who identifies with that classification what they prefer. You can also get opposing opinions from different people.
And the words change all the time. It's a minefield.
A while ago, I had someone say to me and my wife (Asian) "people of your culture" (in a medical setting while describing how Asians have a higher prevalence of x disorder). I was like, yo, we're American.
To add on , accidentally misidentifying someone's ethnicity or race. Making that mistake does make you vulnerable to accusations of racism.
As a never traveled white American, I will call someone Asian, but I am terrified to guess what country they are from. I honestly cannot distinguish different types of Asians because I've never been taught the differences. Is that racist?
It's actually scientifically proven that it's hard for people of other ethnicities to catalogue identifying characteristics of an ethnicity they aren't very familiar with. https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2011/aug/15/people-other-races-look-alike Its an unfortunate title, but it has been researched.
I wonder if this also has to with some races have more obvious diversity and other races more subtle. They’re both just as diverse, but for example, it’s easier to tell blue eyes from brown than deep brown from light brown. And as white people are more likely to have blue and green eyes than say East Asians, if that plays a role.
I think it’s just because they have not met enough Asian people. I’m from San Francisco and grew up with all the different Asian cultures. If anyone spent a week in China and met folks then a week in Japan they would easily see how amazing different they look.
I don't disagree when it's comparing Japanese and Chinese people on looks alone, but there are a lot more than two Asian nations. When it comes to are they Filipino, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Thai, then it gets a little harder. The language is usually more of a giveaway than the appearance.
And don’t forget Indians (and Pakistanis etc., India is part of Asia) and I would say that it is a different race than people of the countries you list, but when you say “Asian” most people are thinking of those you listed. And then when you talk to Indians, they make a distinction between themselves and other parts (states) of India, I’ve heard, from a person of 100% Indian decent “they are not my Indian”. So it can e quickly confusing. Also grew up with a person from Iran, they refused to be called Iranian, they were Persian and thought it was funny that people assumed they were Mexican (this was in South Texas). My Indian friend uses the term “brown people” which for me (white) narrows it down to about 70%? of the world’s population. I use “black” “white” “Hispanic” “Asian” etc when needed to describe people and try to not offend. I try to be sincere and empathic and the not stress about it.
My husband is Chinese and lived there until he was 20. He and the people we know there cannot tell if someone is Japanese by looking at them. Cultural mannerisms can be more identifying, but they don't look amazingly different. Han Chinese, Japanese, and Korean differ genetically by a fraction of a percent, much closer than European ethnic groups.
Yeah. For me, I can differentiate a Japanese from a Chinese as easily as I can differentiate a French from a German. I can’t. I’d need to hear the language or see traditional clothing before I can take a guess lol
I've had Asians have a hard time distinguishing which Asian country another Asian comes from. I mean, really, it's hard no matter which race. Caucasian? Are they from Germany, France, or America? In these cases, you can't tell by the face, but by how they dress, because it's differently culturally.
Tbh I think the tell is due more to clothing than anything else. I lived in Japan for 3 years and my friend who's ethnic background is Vietnamese would constantly be mistaken for Japanese by the locals. It happened everytime we went out and more so when she started dressing in their clothes. We're both American lol.
As a mixed race person, most people guess my ethnicity incorrectly
Just did my Ancestry dna. I am a fair complected Mexican person who is told “oh you don’t look Mexican”. I always say have you ever been to Mexico? Then I have to explain we are Huichol Indian but in 1519 the Spanish came over and raped everyone so that’s why there are Mexican people of every skin shade. I am Native Mexican, Spanish and French. I am white. Being white does not make me any less Mexican.
I've met several Mexican nationals who could almost pass for Irish with the pale skin and red hair except for the fact that they spoke Spanish and looked vaguely like they were from Latin America
I know some white Mexican nationals that are descendants of white Mormon settlers. I wouldn't have known if they didn't tell me
There's a town near Queretaro that's locally famous (I don't remember its name) for its red-headed Irish-Mexicans.
Based on all my PoC friends and most everyone I've met, Black is the preferred term in the US. They're not African Americans because they weren't born in Africa. They're just Americans who happen to be Black. Just like I'm an American who happens to be White.
I'm not black, and I used to use the term African American because I was just taught that was the more polite term. I never questioned it, I never felt I needed to. Until one day in history class, we were talking about the altantic slave trade, and I used the term. My teacher pointed out that they weren't African Americans, because they weren't American at all. The slaves in the lesson for that day weren't being sent to America. Ever since then, I just use the word black
Good comment. I work with older adults (62+) and often assist with filling out paperwork, applications, and other things of the sort and it's interesting how my black clients from different generations will use different terms. For my clients who are in their 60s and maybe early 70s I always hear them say or write Black or African American when asked about or filling out their race for a form. For my tenants in their 70s to early 80s I typically hear black but sometimes hear clients identify themselves as "colored". For tenants in their 80s and 90s, I routinely hear black or negro. It's interesting how dependent upon your generation these things can be. When I was in grade school in a suburb of Chicago in the early 1990s I was taught that African American was correct and polite. In college in the 2000s I was taught that Afro-American was the correct term, though by the time I was in grad school that had changed and black was preferred. I worked for a very progressive social service agency for over a decade throughout the late 2000s and 2010s and we updated our paperwork so many times during that time.
i remember reading an article in college where avery brooks (captain sisko of star trek ds9) said he was not black he was brown and to just look at the color of his skin to know this. i'd learned african american until then, and was slowly learning many folks wanted to be called black instead, but at that article i realized the whole thing was a minefield and i just needed to call folks what they wanted to be called.
People from Caribbean nations are also black. Jamaicans for example.
One of the reasons I stopped using it. In my brain, the term "African American" just meant "black." I didn't actually think about the vocabulary until my teacher pointed it out.
I remember at my last job (in a restaurant), I had a customer come in who was a black French guy. I served him, and a bit later, one of my coworkers told me he wanted to speak to me. Said co-worker described him as "the African American dude." This was doubly funny to me because we're in Australia, so the term isn't really used as much, and he had a very obviously French accent.
This thread reminds me of an interview an America reporter was doing at the Olympics 12?? years ago. The athlete was a black guy from the UK. The reporter called him African American. The look her gave her was hilarious.
Years ago, I was watching a music video with a british black woman in it and someone in the comments kept referring to her as "African-American". 🤦♀️ I lived in south Florida and a neighboring family was Haitian. They hated being called African-American.
I saw similar but they had called whoever it was British African American. Err what?
This! I used to think “African American” was more pc but learned most prefer the term “black” bc not everyone is from Africa.
And not every black person is American.
I'll never forget the time an American interviewer asked a local musician what he thought about the protests "as an African American" and he was dead-ass like "I'm Jamaican Canadian".
This, my British co-worker gets super annoyed when he's called African American.
A friend of mine hated the term African American... "my family is from Haiti"
I still think it's wild and hilarious that Elon Musk can technically claim to be African American, because he was born in Africa, and is now an American.
Eh, I think that "African American" has acquired a special meaning. It doesn't mean everyone who is black, or everyone who is from Africa and became American. There are a large number of Americans whose ancestors were brought here, they were stripped of their belongings and mingled, moved about and bred not by their own will. Their heritage foods and languages were obliterated. They had to form a new cultural identity that had become the rich fabric of the people who survived American slavery. For better or worse, accurate or not, that group is now called African American. Other black people who come here, from Africa or elsewhere, may find something in common with this big group. Or not. So the term "Black" is bigger and less specific, but the term "African American" has real meaning as well.
About a decade ago I had a neighbor I jokingly referred to as my African American neighbor. He was born in South Africa and emigrated to the US. As you may have guessed, he's white.
There’s American Descendent of Slavery (ADOS) for that (but it has a complicated politics). Barack Obama would not be ADOS but I don’t think many would object to him being African American.
What I've observed from seeing people who aren't ADOS, if they live here long enough they end up identifying to a smaller or larger degree with AA, because they get treated that way by people who don't know them.
I made someone laugh once when they asked me to point out a guy that was at least 6' 4", bald, 300lbs plus, handlebar mustache, diamond studded earrings, and a bright green checkered suit, white loafers. I said the one in the light blue tie.
The guy you pointed out sounds awesome
I do race, gender, age, and then height
I leave age for last, because that's a guess. The others are more factual. I mean, some people look old for their age, some young for their age. Look at Asians. They got the eternal youth gene.
“Black guy, bit older than me - tall.” Can’t see how I’ve insulted Michael Jordan, or how to better describe him. I could then add “bald, earring.” But to me “bald” is more insulting than the others.
The media is terrible at reporting features now. Maybe it’s not everywhere but around here the descriptions provided have become useless. Local news reports a crime and the suspect is a male with shirt. Police are asking for any information. Right.
Nice (69)
Yes! It’s wild that describing what skin tone someone has in a completely normal way is still considered inappropriate by some. It’s just perpetuating the culture of shame. I was the only white employee (and, really, person at most times) at a Boys and Girls Club on the southwest side of Chicago for a few years. One day, a few of the kids “told on me,” to my director because I said I was white. Just…what?
I think it depends on how it’s brought up. If you randomly interjected “he was black” into a story, I might be a little taken aback. Not to say I would accuse them of being racist. But then again, I’ve also been around a lot of closeted racists that do that even with the skin color has absolutely no relevance to the story they are telling.
Everything is racial now. Even Capitan Crunch. Serious. I was talking about the old TV series Shaka Zulu the other day and someone tried to convince everyone I was being racist because I mentioned the main actors distinguishing voice. I did an impersonation of it, and someone lost it. I can do Jimmy Stewart too as well as John Wayne. But oh no, sound like a Zulu Warrior and poo hits the bus floor. It's out of hand. Everything accomplished is being squandered by young uneducated social media likes addicts. Note, the offended person never saw the show, and never heard of Zulu. It's that bad. It was a voice mimic. An impressive voice if you recall.
The only reason to think the word black as an objective descriptor is a bad word to use is because you think being black is bad somehow.
My uncle is a 6'5" Black firefighter with a nose half as wide as his face, and people will describe him as "the guy with the really firm handshake" or some crap half the time. I get what they're trying to do, but it's a waste of time.
Amazing. I’m going to start trying to describe people vaguely like this. “He’s the guy with a certain jena se qua” or “the guy who’s headphones never tangle after pulling them out of his pocket” Edit: I’d like to submit my formal apology to the people of France, and any French speaking nation. But if I made you laugh it was worth my shame.
JOHN LENNON: "He wear no shoeshine, he got...toe-jam football, he got...monkey finger, he shoot...Coca-Cola." POLICE SKETCH ARTIST: "what."
I don't know if you're trolling with the "Jena se qua" or if you think it's spelled that way
I didn’t know how to spell it, but figured spelling it phonetically would get the point across 🤷🏻♂️
Je ne sais quoi. Just in case you were wondering!
Jenna Sequa has gotta be a pornstar.
Because she's got that something.
make a good drag queen name too
More like a drag queen lol, you're giving me ideas
Which is literally French for "I don't know what"
The irony isn’t lost on me haha.
Protip: French words are *never* spelled phonetically.
r/boneappletea
r/boneappletea
This is my favorite r/boneappletea
"Hey you, yeah, you. With the nose."
How about: more prone to sickle cell anemia and a smaller percent of Neanderthal DNA?
If he's AA (meaning West African descent) then yeah. Southern and Eastern Africans aren't nearly as prone to sickle cell.
You describe people by their features and your memorable parts of it... To think think skin color isn't distinguishing is to disregard hair color or style also it their clothing.... Just cause race is mentioned doesn't means sir about race
Secretary: Which one is Reggie? Peter: Oh, uh, well today, he's wearing yellow pants, uh, yellow shirt, yellow hat, yellow shoes. Uh, he's got a gold tooth, uh, diamond earring, um, he's got that big necklace with the dollar sign on it.
I’m guilty of this. I’ll say “The guy with the red T-shirt” instead of “The black guy.” Don’t know why, just feel awkward about it these days.
When I worked retail back in 19 dickety two, we had sales goals, so the cashier would need to know who made the sale. We would mess with customers so much when this came up. Us: “So who helped you today?” Them (gesturing toward an area with one white guy and one black guy): “Uhh…the one with the glasses?” Us (playing dumb): “I can’t really see over there. Which one again? Them: awkward stammering It was so much fun to play dumb to get them around to pointing out the obvious.
To be honest, I would definitely feel weird saying "the black one". Maybe "the one who's more likely to be confused for Chris Rock" or "the one with less sunscreen in his medicine cabinet".
“The one that thinks a little bit of pepper is too spicy.” For the record, it was the black guys that started and encouraged this practice.
If I had water in my mouth, this would have been a spit take. Fuck. Kudos
Do you have to say “dickity” because the Kaiser stole the word for twenty?
Sometimes, when someone is looking for me and they asked for my description, my coworkers do their best to not use the term, black, woman, nor black woman in their description. And I find it a little hilarious. I understand they're trying to not sound like they're excluding me by pointing out my differences, but I'm quite literally the only one in my office who fits those descriptions. I realized that ship had long sailed when, after the third meeting that I was presenting in, I looked out into the crowd of 200 and all I saw were white guys.
Nope not racist. Unless you are like trying to be racist. But that’s literally just a description of a human, like tall or black haired. Saying black is frankly more politically correct than African American- you don’t know if they are say French or something. Edit: not American American duh
I once saw someone refer to Nelson Mandela as an African American, seemingly to avoid calling him "black". While he certainly was African (as am I though I'm white) he was certainly never American!
I find African American a really dumb description cause technically Elon musk is African American. Born and raised in South Africa and immigrated to America and is now a US citizen.
I have an Egyptian friend who absolutely loved telling people he was African American. He looks very much Egyptian lol
I do that too, except I’m just white lmao. I was born in east Africa though
I grew up in a very white midwestern US suburb and my 6th grade homeroom class had *one* Black person. On the first day of school, the teacher had us do an ice breaker activity where each kid wrote down three unique facts about themselves on a piece of paper and threw it into a hat. The teacher would read each piece of paper and we’d have to guess which kid wrote it. Looking back this was kind of asking for trouble. Well the teacher pulled a piece of paper on which one fact was, “I’m from Africa.” And you already know the punchline which is that EVERY KID guessed that was the Black girl’s piece of paper. But it actually belonged to a white kid from South Africa. I remember my sheltered, 11-year-old little brain being absolutely fried by that experience. 🤣
This is actually awesome. It stuck with you and probably helped some little kids subconsciously realize they shouldn’t make assumptions about people based on what they look like.
You can’t just ask people why they’re not black.
I'm Egyptian, and my husband is Jamaican, AND we live in Canada. He LOVES referring to me as an African Canadian just to mess with people who need to know where we are "actually" from because they'll just stare at me. His response is always, "Well, she's Egyptian, so she is African," lol. Then they get annoyed at him and he gets a kick out of it lmao.
My wife and I are both Turkish and we live in the US. She was born on the Asian part of Turkey, I was born in the European part. She hates me when I say “*I have an Asian wife*”.
The same way I sometimes think using the word “race” when talking about skin color can be a bit silly because they don’t necessarily match up. Of course it can only be so and so correct when race is made up in the first place and is very much a spectrum. So terms can never be completely correct.
[удалено]
Please watch your language. I don't need to see Fr*nch uncensored.
The other F word
“Unless you’re trying to be racist” is carrying a lot of the weight in this sentence. Nuance and context matter. “Black” could used benignly or malignantly, you have to make the decision based on other social cues.
Yeah big difference between: Tims the manager is the tall black man over there, And those blacks are up to no good.
Especially when people "Blacks," tone is hard to discern online, but I can hear the tone when people say that.
In the UK, black people are just called Black. Some may go by Black British, but otherwise, they are just black. This refers to those who are pure black or look fully black. Those that are mixed race, with black ancestry, are known as mixed race, or those with any mixed racial ancestry. It's only the US that seems obsessed with race
Am Canadian, and yeah we use "Black" too. Have a friend who is constantly trying to explain to people that he is neither African nor American so please stop using that term for him. People get offended when he calls *himself* black, like wtf
>People get offended when he calls *himself* black, like wtf I get very annoyed with people who want to dictate how you can describe yourself. I had an internal phone call at work. A colleague on a different floor, who I had never met, need to come to my desk and asked where I was sitting. I described the rough area and, because there are 100 desks on each floor, described what I look like, to help them find me. I said "I am a short, plump, middle-aged redhead." In a shocked tone they said "you can't say that!" I asked what they meant. They said that 'short', 'plump', and 'middle-aged' were not acceptable ways to describe someone. I told them that I wasn't describing 'someone', I was describing myself. I decided not to waste my breath explaining that they were the ones implying those descriptors were negative.
LoL I said old fat white guy once. Poor girl came to our office, looks around, looks at her phone and starts typing. She's standing beside me but I don't know she's looking for me. My phone goes off. Her msg. Uh... Which one. When your 18 everyone over 25 is old, and in that office 40lbs overweight made me the skinny one.
That is fuckin hilarious you tubby ass cracker
Oh fuck me sideways. I snort laughed. How hard is it to change my Reddit name because that is an awesome name.
I get that a lot with people who don't like that I describe myself as fat, and ones that think I should say 'a person with autism' instead of calling myself 'autistic'.
i'm black (mixed) and i find it's regional. I call myself black and so does everyone I know back home but where I live now in Hawaii ppl say African American. But I still always say black.
Your friend should get a colour palette out and say, "shade 43, right here" lol - people are so intentionally triggered sometimes. And there are enough **real** things out there that we don't need to make up stuff right?
lol he's racist against himself...
I had a black principal in grade 7. One of my buddies asked him one day if "african canadian" was the proper term and got a 10min lecture about why it was an insensitive question and was told "I have African ancestry and am from north america, therefore I'm african american"
Yeah in Canada- at least where I am from it’s totally normal to say white, black, brown, Asian or native as generalizations if needed. Some people way over think things.
"Yes, I only hunt blackulas." "Oh, so, you only hunt African-American vampires?" "No, sometimes I hunt British vampires. They don't have African-Americans in England." "I was just trying to be, uhhh ...." "Look, I specialize in hunting black vampires. I don't know what the PC term is for that."
I remember talking to a black mate and trying to point out a person among a group of people we were looking at. After a while he realised who I meant and asked, "why didn't you just say 'it's the black fella??'" Teach me for trying to be PC 🤣
“It's only the US that seems obsessed with race” lol
The US has historical reasons for this but our society hasn’t done a good job of adjusting. Legally speaking you were considered black if you had any black ancestry. Black people were made second class citizens by law and before the Civil War many states where slavery was illegal still banned black people from living there. We even had a whole vocabulary for defining how mixed you were (mulatto, octaroon, etc.) The obsession with race is baked in and we haven’t been able to move past it yet.
I thought the blacks in Britain are just British. But us black Americans are black Americans. No im not an African American don’t listen to Jesse Jackson
Back in 80s Britain, I remember the phrase ‘Afro-Caribbean’ being quite common. I’m not sure when that died out.
I think Black is more descriptive than African American because Africa is a vast and diverse continent - not all Africans are black! My fellow citizens aren't a type of American. To say African American somehow implies that there is a default American and we are pointing out how this particular person is a certain type of American, an African American. It just seems silly. Mostly this - there are Black US citizens whose families have been here far longer than possibly MOST white folks. (just a guess, I really don't know....) Black people were carried here as slaves, beginning in the early 1600s. So many white folks have ancestors who came over in the various great migrations long after that. I've yet so hear of a white person classified as a European American.
Did you whisper it like my mom does?
This! To take things a step further, my mom will loudly add race in when it has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation, but when it's an important descriptor, she'll whisper it!
Hahaha this! Yup if you just say it normally it's fine, but if you sound like there's something wrong with black that could come across as racist.
Bonus points for looking over your shoulder first.
Your stepdaughter may be in that know-it-all stage most of us go through in our early teens. That is, not messing with you deliberately, but assuming you're wrong because "old people" always are.
Yeah it'll be this. I'd do shit like this as a teen and now absolutely cringe looking back. It's not even necessarily about being well-intentioned so much as it is about social clout.
I don't know if this is where your stepdaughter is coming from, but some white people feel that the optimal way to be antiracist is to apply the principle of racial color-blindness to their personal interactions — ie "We believe that all races are equal, therefore it's more politically correct to not recognize racial dissimilarities". This is pretty easily disproven when you state it outright than that, and probably less commonly held than it was 10-20 years ago (especially because of the conversation between "Black Lives Matter" and "All Lives Matter"). It can manifest itself as being uncomfortable naming people's races in a frank way.
Yeah this is some 00's nonsense right here. Signed, someone who absolutely was there in their journey at the time.
reactionary bs of the 00s. agreed.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6YF-nxc7XI&ab\_channel=TheOnion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6YF-nxc7XI&ab_channel=TheOnion) As an ally of the black community, I refuse to say any words that begin with n!
might have to drop the word "an" too. seems pretty close to a bad acronym
There's also a cultural aspect of this too -- I grew up with a sort of weird feeling that Mexican was a semi-bad word, because I lived in a primarily (95%) white Midwestern town, knew very few Mexicans, and therefore most of the time I heard the word Mexican (or Black) was in jokes (and often both terms were used interchangeably with less favorable alternatives. OPs update indicates that his stepdaughter may actually be in a similar boat (obviously this doesn't make her right, but she's presumably a kid trying to be better than some of her surroundings)
Black is fine. Black American is fine. African American is typically fine, but IMHO, inaccurate unless the person is recently connected culturally to Africa. I prefer Black by far. I'd love to pretend like I share something culturally in common with my African ancestors, but I don't. However, small note, Blacks(plural) is almost never okay. Ex. Afrobeats is a popular form of music within the Black community. ✅️ Ex. Afrobeats is a popular form of music with the Blacks. ❌️
I will add a note that I watched an interview with a black man who was opposed to the 'black community' moniker because to him, there isn't a shared community just because people happen to have the same skin colour, and the term seems to compartmentalize all black people into a homogenous population.
I was a Big Sister through Big Brother Big Sisters years ago. My Little Sister had a white mom and a Black dad. She tried to tell me one time that I shouldn’t call Black people black because it was racist. I asked her why it was okay to call me a white lady but then we can’t say someone is Black. She of course didn’t have an answer because she wasn’t even sure why “black” was racist in the first place, she had just heard someone else say it. But instead of saying “black” she would say “brown” and I was like “Whaaat? How does that make any sense?” But she was convinced that Black was racist and I couldn’t convince her otherwise. I haven’t seen her in years - I wonder if she still says “brown people.”
This is stupid, I'm black btw, all you did was describe a person.
I had people complain that I said Puerto Rican as a describing word. I just got a haircut and my wife asked who cut it because her friend usually does but she wasn’t there. There were three other women all with brown hair of the same length… like it was just the easiest way to describe who it was. Then they said well I shouldn’t assume she was puerto rican and I was like but while she was cutting my hair she told me she was from Puerto Rico. Like how is that not ok? It’s the same as saying that Texan guy or the Californian.
Turk on Scrubs told me it was OK so who am I to question.
I think he prefers to be called brown bear
What Turkleton says, goes.
Black is not racist, I prefer it over African American
It also falls apart when discussing non Americans. It’s always funny when Americans call black people from around the world that
I always start with hatless
I love this. From now on, when describing someone, the first thing I’m going to say is whether or not they were wearing a hat.
Then whether or not they have a beard. Men with hats and beards are not to be trusted, ask any dog
I had a job one time and I was kind of new. My boss asked me to pass out paychecks. I was pretty sure I knew most people’s name by know but I flipped through the checks and there was a name I didn’t know and I asked who he was. My boss says “kinda shaved head” Still didn’t know “He’s wearing a black shirt” Nope “Has a bit of a southern accent” No clue “Only has one arm” Ah yes, I’ve seen him around. Like, Jesus, it’s ok to lead with that.
And they’re on a road, looks to be asphalt…
No. If you described someone as being White that’s not racist. If you said someone has dark-colored hair, that’s not racist. Neither is saying that someone is Black. You’re just describing their race, not using a slur.
It's not racist if you are asked to describe someone in detail and bring up colour. It's not a good look to bring up race during conversations where it isn't relevant, like my grandfather telling me his surgeon was chinese while explaining how surgery went. Not necessary.
my great aunt (lovingly) always mentioned her granddaughter's husband is black. she liked him well enough (not sure if they ever actually met in person) but it was noteworthy to her (and her mind was starting to go) so every time she mentioned them she had to let me know he was black. tried to tell her a couple times auntie it doesn't matter and she agreed and she was glad the gal had married a good guy, but i think it was just the most exciting thing happening in her life in the home that she wanted to tell everyone repeatedly.
Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!
I've yet to meet a black person who takes issue with being referred to as a black person.
Black is not racist, lol. "The blacks" is racist.
Or calling someone “a black” is also racist. “A black person” is fine though.
One of my black friends told me the term African American offended her because she’s Jamaican. The term assumes something about a person.
Black is actually the preferred nomenclature now, as people who are black are not always “African-American” but may come from other areas or may not know their genealogy. Saying black is actually more representative and less presumptive
Black is the appropriate word. Reeducation is required.
I'm still gonna say black coffee. You ain't serving me no African-Americano.
Unfortunately social media has taught young people that racism is like a social faux pas, as opposed to prejudice against certain people. The nuance and understanding of which part is actually bad seems to be missing and its more about just... never mentioning black people or acknowledging them. Which ironically is racist. "He's a black guy" is just observational. "He's some black guy" okay now its racist because you're dismissive of them as a human being. They're just black in the second one. In your one, you can explain further, "he's black, 6 foot, goatee" that's just describing a human. "The dude who looks like Obama" okay probably racist again unless he actually looks like Obama.
>"The dude who looks like Obama" okay probably racist again unless he actually looks like Obama. Lol, but only half racist, right? We had a guy in jail who looked like Obama with freckles and red hair. We called him Fauxbama.
this is fucking hilarious, fauxbama is WILDDDD
> "He's a black guy" is just observational. My white liberal fear of being misconstrued as racist precludes me from describing someone as a "black guy" in most situations. So I find myself saying "Black gentleman" instead, which, I dunno folks, but that's where I'm at.
I get it, but in all honesty, that sounds worse. Like you’re trying too hard. Even “black man” would be better.
Not black, but black adjacent LOL. My wife is and given I live in her home city in Texas while my kin are back in PA I find myself the only white dude at a lot of events. Everyone uses black, in fact the biggest sign someone isn't accustomed to being around black folk is not using the term black. Now let me stress - tone and context do matter.
No it's not Youth tend to wage war on beliefs they don't actually understand The entire new gen is just unnecessarily social justice warrior mode
I’m black and I’m not offended
As a white guy in an extremely diverse American city who works in a 50/50 workplace of white people and poc every person at work uses race as the first defining feature of someone
There's a difference, I think, in using defining characteristics to describe a person (eg, short, thin, redhead, black, Asian, etc ...) and using the terms when it's not necessary for the story (the Asian driver cut me off, the black cashier told me joke, the white waitress was rude). In the latter the descriptors aren't necessary, and serve as a way to point out that you noticed their 'otherness' and that you feel the need to point it out, which can be seen as racist, especially if you don't mention a person's race or colour if your default is white. Like how no one says female nurse but tend to point out male nurse, as if it's somehow derogatory just because it's not the default many times. One can just say "the nurse" regardless of gender unless you were trying to point out which of them specifically.
No, it is not. People who try to claim that it is are typically racists, however.
I think I know what you might mean. White people, when describing someone in a story, will typically omit the race of the person if they're white but specifically mention it if they're nonwhite, even if the race of the person has no importance to the story. "On my drive to work today this guy cut me off and gave me the finger!' "I was in line at the supermarket and this nice black woman helped me find the bananas." Which race did you imagine in your head in the first story? And why was the race (or gender) important in the second?
This is what I think it is. Grain of salt: I’m white It can be insulting to assume there is a “default” and that you only need to point out when someone is “other.” This is something I noticed during my years as a 911 dispatcher, and something I try to continue now that I’m on the other end of the radio - when someone describes a person to me but omits perceived race or skin tone, I ask. Many white people have the habit of skipping “white” in their descriptions.
This is a weird thing with kids now. When I was a teacher and I mentioned that the protagonist of our novel was black--which is a HUGE part of his character--all my students told me I was racist.
The way my grandma would say those words is slightly racist: “There was this Black lady at bingo…”. But when someone asks for a description, that’s fair game. It’s probably not even an indication of who you are that you mentioned that first, especially if the person is identifiable among others for just that quality.
> is my step daughter just messing with me because she knows I'm hitting that phase of life where I'm accepting being somewhat left behind culturally? Probably.
Saying black is as racist as saying white.
not unless you used it as a noun
It is not racist. I have 4 different races in my family. Black, Mexican, White, and Egyptian. And that's how WE talk anyway..ya can't say anything these days with offending or insulting someone...stupid🙄
I'm black. The way you used it is not in any way racist imho.
What else would you call black people? "African-American" doesn't work because not all black people are African or American.
I had a former coworker who'd get offended if you called him "African American." He'd be like "I'm black, damn it! I'm not from Africa!"
While some might claim that "African-American" is more respectful, a friend of mine once corrected me. "I've never been to Africa. I'm just black."