Quote:
Originally Posted by dammage79
People dancing on eggshells on how to reference ethnic groups in conversation is definitely an issue that IMO causes unwarranted anxiety.
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I also speaking from the position of a white man, I hate this part of all of it. There are situations where you are just wanting to describe a person and it is so much more efficient, but all of the historic context makes using these terms to describe people guilt inducing. Sometimes your its just that you were introduced to a bunch of people and you want help to remember everyone, and you just want to say to the person doing the introductions [hey what was the black guys name again], but instead your stumbling over words, pointing at people, its almost worse and your certainly doing more to single the person out as different by being so inefficient with your language, but you don't want to be seen a impolite.
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
"People of color" as a term has a history in the US and it is largely associated with the subjugation of African Americans. Other races or ethnicities were not usually captured under this euphemism.
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I was going to say, but AFC pretty much got it, I think people have the causality backwards when the blame the name for negative stereotypes, you can people of colour to whatever you want, peoples of non european origin, those guys from the big southern continent, espresso coloured folk.... the label will eventually become connected to the stereotype as long as the stereotype exists. And as mentioned in my post above, at some point in time we need the language to effective describe the physical attributes of people, it is just far to inefficient to pretend that we don't see those difference especially when we are trying do something as simple as describe someone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
The problem is any term that denotes a minority will become negative in time because the word takes on the negative perceptions of the majority.
The logical part of me gets annoyed that language is a bit of an ever changing minefield, the empathetic part of me realises that trying to be careful about what I say is a tiny price to pay to not cause hurt to my fellow humans and utterly insignificant to the issues that minorities face
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