It’s disrespectful to keep referring to anyone by any name that they’ve requested you to not use to reference. Kind of simple right?
Apparently this is a very difficult concept for people to grasp.
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“Mein Führer” and “my boss” mean the same thing. My boss definitely won’t mind if I use those interchangeably. Arguing otherwise is just semantics. /s
More like antisemantics
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“Fuck you” vs “you fuck” is just semantics. Ignore that “asshole”.
Turn out it’s the definition of rational as it can be empirically supported. From further up in the thread:
There actually is proper data showing that this kind of thing can actually make a meaningful difference, and surely we’re all evidence-driven people here, right?
A 2008 experiment researched teenagers’ perception of epilepsy with respect to people-first language. Teenagers from a summer camp were divided into two groups. One group was asked questions using the term “people with epilepsy”, and the other group was asked using the term “epileptics”, with questions including “Do you think that people with epilepsy/epileptics have more difficulties at school?” and “Do you have prejudice toward people with epilepsy/epileptics?” The study showed that the teenagers had higher “stigma perception” on the Stigma Scale of Epilepsy when hearing the phrase “epileptics” as opposed to “people with epilepsy”.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2008.01899.x
Not an exact parallel, but the point stands that these kinds of language patters can genuinely influence perception.
Its that simple, making People the prominent noun in the semantics makes people humanized. Adding colored beforehand denotes some imperative difference that must be considered for it to be placed before their humanity.
This is honestly ridiculous logic. That’s how adjectives work. Calling someone a tall person isn’t dehumanizing them.
Totally ignoring the evidence provided that it does make a difference.
Also, to state the obvious, tall people aren’t a marginalized group in our society so it may not activate the same nueral pathways that lead to bias.
The study you quoted isn’t the same thing. It would be more like comparing “people of color” with “coloreds”. And to your point about how tall people aren’t marginalized, that’s kind of my point. “Colored people” is offensive because it’s been used derogatorily for so long, not because of the word order. That same wikipedia article points out that there are several marginalized groups that reject people first language. It mentions Deaf and autistic people, but anecdotally I’ve never seen anyone take offense to “gay people” or “trans people” either. It’s just the specific history of the adjective “colored” being applied to people that makes the difference.
It’s kind of a dialect type thing where certain phrases or wording gives more information than just what’s been stated. Whether the speaker actually means those things is different than what the listener hears and understands.
In this particular case the usual implication is, “I’m trying to be polite but if I could I would use the N word instead.”. Especially because it’s more of an older term.
@Royal_Bitch_Pudding @marmo7ade
It is part of how some folks think.
I managed an IT dept and my sole employee was black. Great guy with a great sense of humor.
One day, the Director of HR, yes, HR, emailed support, asking that someone come take a look at her “colored printer”.
He joked that as the colored IT guy, he would go fix it. ROFL.
This woman was raised as a racist, but her role precluded her speaking her mind.
Her manner of thinking did out her, nonetheless.
Oh good, time to refresh on what is and is not appropriate terminology.
TLDR don’t be racist.
There is such a thing as being oversensitive.
There’s also such a thing as systemic racism that is very easy to ignore of you’re not affected.
Changing the acceptable terminology every decade is never going desegregate a neighborhood, or shrink demographic wealth disparities, or improve health outcomes, etc. I think it’s mostly a distraction so people can feel like they’re doing something.
Silver bullet fallacy: because something won’t, on its own, turn the world into a paradise, it has no value and shouldn’t be done.
No.
Why are we no longer referring to people as “idiots” and “retards” and “cripples?”
Is that also just a distraction so that people can feel like they’re doing something? Are you, personally, just sticking with the old terminology?
I use whatever terminology is current, because, like I said, it basically makes no difference. Why upset people for no reason?
Pick a lane.
Why upset people for no reason?
WHY INDEED, YOU MORON.
To racism? Nah, there’s no room for bigotry in polite society. Using racist language is disrespectful and belies a deeper prejudice, and stamping it out requires dilligence and persistence.
If anything, Americans are insensitive to racism. “Racially insensitive” is a good way to describe people who don’t use epithets but just happen to have 90% white friends, and “don’t understand why people are angry”. Just look for people who use words like “inner city” and “urban youth”.
I really don’t think that having friends who are predominantly your own race makes you a racist or racially insensitive.
No, but it can be a red flag if you live in a diverse area but don’t have a diverse set of friends.
That’s my secret - I don’t have any friends.
Yeah, it happens, but that doesn’t apply here. Someone referring to ‘colored people’ in this day and age is just someone who is avoiding the N word while sending the same message.
Except the NAACP who kept their name for historical purposes and that is fine because of context.
As a non-American, my confusion with this issue is that “coloured people” and “people of colour” are functionally identical phrases in the English language. Using coloured as an adjective vs a noun with “of” gets you to the exact same spot.
I appreciate that there is historical context, but I can’t help but feel that the difference between offence and no offence essentially boils down to grammatical semantics. In my mind, barring slurs or perjoratives, the intention behind the phrase is really what matters.
It’s kind of a dialect type thing where certain phrases or wording gives more information than just what’s been stated. Whether the speaker actually means those things is different than what the listener hears and understands based on their cultural experience.
In this particular case the usual implication is, “I’m trying to be polite but if I could I would use the N word instead.”.
It tends to be true because it’s an older term.
I do agree that it can be confusing, even for Americans.
Racists used ‘colored people’ as part of their terminology during slavery and while continuing to discriminate after the Civil War. Hearing the same dehumanizing specific word order is the important part, not the grammar.
Yes, I agree it’s a loaded term. Perhaps my disconnect is more how: (a) the loaded term and the acceptable term (in 2023, at least) are functionally identical, with only marginal grammatical separation; and (b) there is such a wide tabboo gap between those margins.
Grammar is not relevant. Racists used the term ‘colored people’ during segregation, and they still use it in place of even worse slurs like the N word, which is why it has a negative connotation that is not shared by people of color.
As an example of how racism is still an ongoing issue, a legislator using the term while opposing diversity measures prompted this whole thread.
I would argue that grammar is the most relevant bit; it’s the only thing separating the acceptable phrase from the unacceptable phrase, which are otherwise identical.
I appreciate that there is historical context, but
No, I don’t think you do.
I was hopeful that we would have fewer low effort comments like this on Lemmy since I moved from Reddit.
It’s an offensive, racist phrase with a history of usage by racists. Black people will punch you if you call them that. What else is there to consider? It’s a slur. Don’t use it. End of story.
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Nobody else gets that upset about semantics
I dare you to walk up to a Black person in modern America and call them ‘coloured’. See how it goes for you.
To be fair, I would bet that not all black people are cool with being called a “person of colour” either.
The vast majority would not care about “person of color”.
Have any of you ever actually met a Black person? What kind of sheltered white hell is this?
I would argue the people in this thread flipping out about being asked to refer to minorites in a way that doesn’t have a ton of historical baggage and has been empirically shown to promote better empathy responses are the over-sensitive ones, lol.
Like, it’s all right to get corrected now and then. The difference between acting bigoted and being okay is literary just a simple “I didn’t realize that was wrong, I’ll try and not do that in the future. Thanks for checking me on it”.
I grew up in a conservative suburb in the South and got saddled with a lot of unfortunate ideas. I make mistakes, use questionable terms, and misgender people by accident somewhere regularly.
I’ve literally never had a problem if I apologize and affirm it was ignorance on my part, or a mistake I know I make and am working on, but that I am trying to be better. Just be open to change and don’t be a dipshit about it and it’s not an issue.
If you think it’s an issue it’s likely that you’re being a dipshit about it and making things harder for yourself than they need to be.
Either read the article or go away.
But but the NAACP uses it.
As a teenager we were doing team football pictures and the photographer said “colored boy slide over.” This was around '99 and in Tennessee, we only had 4 black kids and 2 mixed kids on a team of about 22 players. The coaching staff had to step in and protect him bc if not, at least 15 teens where going to whoop his ass. The staff immediately told him to leave and we did the pictures through someone else.
Some people thing they are safe with this kind of language, hate to see what he uses when he’s mad.
I’m a 45yo white male, my parents taught me as a child the “colored people” was inappropriate. If my now 70 year old father who grew up in the south knew it was an inappropriate term 40 some odd years ago, then this clown knows it’s an inappropriate term now.
I’m a mid-40s white person from the deep south and I grew up hearing older white people use the phrase ‘colored people’ to casually refer to black people. Haven’t heard it in a long time though, so I have to imagine a guy even younger than me isn’t using it casually because that’s what they grew up hearing, it’s a term he chose to use for some reason.
I can remember the last time actually- it was 2011 when a 60s-ish guy walked into the shop and asked to speak to ‘the colored man that runs the place’. I gave him a hard look and he said ‘What’s your bosses name’. So even that old guy kind of knew in 2011 it was getting to be out-of-line in that context. So I’m saying Eli Crane made a conscious choice to use that term and I’m guessing it was a message to people like that old guy from 2011.
Why is he dressed like a Bond villian?
Too much credit. Steven Segal film villian, at best.
…Steven Segal dresses like that. Plot twist.
Fuck me, he’s young! I heard about this yesterday but assumed it was one of the ancient bigots that still reminisce about the good ol’ days of legal segregation
He is a young bigot that hopes to bring back legal segregation because he missed it the first time around.
Racism and bigotry pass down from the parents a lot of the time. Its use association is with Jim Crow which is why there are those upset about it. That said, there are those who want to change the cohort term every ten years to make themselves feel better, which I don’t agree with. In the 90s it was all the rage to use African American, but they stopped using that because not everyone from Africa is from the same ethnicity. Is an Egyptian American citizen also an African American? Is Dave Matthews an African American? Thus why that fell out of favor. They changed it to People of Color around 2000 and the usage has become the popular term by 2008.
2000? Bloom County from 1988:
wow. its like since trump its been all about what they can get away with.
What’s wrong with colored people?
How is this different from saying people of color lol
Colored people is defining them as the color first, person second. Combined with historical connotations it’s a phrase that when used is almost always in a racist way.
People of Color is a term that has been reappropriated and is more humanizing. It’s also not associated with racists like the other phrase.
It’s a small difference, and to a lot of people they don’t see a difference, but it is there and takes very little to no effort to use the preferred terminology.
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And yet those semantics are trivial to change and have real effects on people. It costs you nothing to call people what they’d like to be called.
I cannot believe how resistant people can be to putting in a modicum of effort to not be racist/sexist/queerphobic. It does not take much effort to use the preferred term.
It’s insane. It takes absolutely no effort to do. Most of the time it just comes across as “I want to still be able to be racist and you’re not allowed to be offended”.
It’s not even like “colored people” has been acceptable to use in the last 20 years. At least not in most places.
Oh, I can absolutely believe it. They simply do not care, at the end of the day. Some people’s desire to feel smug or superior outweighs whatever little empathy they might have about the well-being and happiness of others that they don’t even care about anyway.
And those semantics are very important to people and ridiculously easy to do right, so why do it wrong on purpose unless you are deliberately an asshole?
Semantics matter!!!
Semantics are about the meaning of words, and how the meaning can be changed drastically by minor changes of a sentence or the sequence of words that have similar meaning? Semantics are important, even if the above poster believe they aren’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
Formal semantics seeks to identify domain-specific mental operations which speakers perform when they compute a sentence’s meaning
That’s exactly the case here? The words have similar meaning, but the sentences do not, both because of the cultural origin, and the sequence of the words actually matter.
Edit: I was originally a bit confused, because the above post uses the word semantics contrary to the meaning. I guess that can be expected for people who just in general don’t get it.
It’s clearly saying they don’t care about the difference, not just saying it’s a semantic difference.
It’s a reply in bad faith and a very transparent one at that
Thanks ;).
I have noticed the word tends to seemingly be used in that way, and have corrected my post to describe that semantics actually matter.
You could try reading a comment before replying to it next time. Assuming you replied to the right comment, which might not be the case.
In the Netherlands we would say you are fucking ants
Why are you commenting on an article about American politics in the first place? Surely this has literally nothing to do with your life.
Yeah, they should focus on their local slave trading history first.
Also really don’t want to get lectured on race relations when this is how they celebrate Christmas
But it is totally different because they don’t have a history of slav-
Oh wait.
I’m no expert, but I suspect that it’s because “colored people” was a term used by racist groups in the past, especially during segregation in America. Just look for old pictures of signs from that era and you’ll see stuff like “Colored Water Fountain”
As for why “people of color” is acceptable, idk. I guess it’s a broader term that applies to more than just black people, but worded differently to show it’s not a segregation era term.
Can someone please explain? I’ve been told I’m supposed to refer to black people as people of color, or people with dark skin.
One outs the color first and has been used by racists for centuries. The other comes from the community and puts the fact that they are a person first.
Without the history of slavery and continued oppression it wouldn’t matter, which is why ‘white people’ is not derogatory on its own.
Thank you for this very concise yet perfectly descriptive explanation, I was a bit confused as a non American about the difference.
It goes along with the vast majority of white people In America just not believing how bad the racism was and still is. Like when I was younger in a 90+% white city I had a hard time wrapping my head around racism still being a thing decades after the Civil rights movement. As I got older and saw just how ingrained racism is in society and how willfully ignorant most people are about things they have not experienced.
I live in Denmark, in the 70’s I thought racism was a thing of the past, and would disappear with the older generations. But oh boy, I never imagined how backwards uninformed people can be.
We had very few problems with racism back then, and as a nation we took pride in for instance never having had slaves, and helping the Jewish population during WW2. So I actually thought we had a culture that was against racism. Unfortunately racism has increased I’d say almost exponentially with emigrants and refugees coming here.
Regarding USA, when I saw for instance Star Trek TOS, I thought that was perfectly normal, I had no idea until 20 years later, that it was extremely progressive for its time! We should strive to be more like Star Trek.
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“Colored” is a term used during segregation explicitly as a racist term, for example, “colored-only” bathrooms and drinking fountains. At best, it’s considered an antiqued term but some still see it as having the same racist meaning.
“People of color” while sounding similar doesn’t carry that same history.
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Context matters. The phrase “colored people” in the US refers only to African Americans, and comes from a time when regular things in the world were labeled “white only” and “colored.”
“People of color” in the US refers to all people who aren’t white, and further prioritizes “people” over race.
Most importantly, we call people what they want to be called. It’s not unreasonable for black people in America to not want to be referred to as “colored people,” and everyone knows it. Continuing to use that language, with full knowledge that it’s received as offensive by the people you’re using it to describe, is being racist on purpose.
The outrage is not about specific words, it’s about people being racist on purpose, and that’s not manufactured.
It’s attitude and intent.
“People of color” is often used in the context of opening doors. “Colored people” is used in the context of slamming them shut.
You bet your ass that this republican fuck is racist as hell. His proposed amendment is the newest in the long line of “let’s make it illegal to acknowledge the actual effects of racism in society” that racists are pushing these days.
Colored people puts their color first before their humanity and has hiatorically been used by racists doing racist things. People of color acknowledges that they are people first, and is a reaction to systemic discrimination. That is why white person isn’t a big deal, since we don’t have a history of oppression.
It is semantics, but there are reasons behind they similar sounding stuff is seen in very different ways.
More importantly, there actually is proper data showing that this kind of thing can actually make a meaningful difference, and surely we’re all evidence-driven people here, right?
A 2008 experiment researched teenagers’ perception of epilepsy with respect to people-first language. Teenagers from a summer camp were divided into two groups. One group was asked questions using the term “people with epilepsy”, and the other group was asked using the term “epileptics”, with questions including “Do you think that people with epilepsy/epileptics have more difficulties at school?” and “Do you have prejudice toward people with epilepsy/epileptics?” The study showed that the teenagers had higher “stigma perception” on the Stigma Scale of Epilepsy when hearing the phrase “epileptics” as opposed to “people with epilepsy”.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2008.01899.x
Not an exact parallel, but the point stands that these kinds of language patters can genuinely influence perception.
That’s just how adjectives work in English. Would the equivalent be fine in French since “people” comes before “colored”? I’m pretty sure the actual reason “people of color” is preferred is that it signals that you’re trying not to be racist, not because of some inherent property of the word order.
If you ignore the history of slavery and discrimination then the order doesn’t matter.
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This wasn’t bungling it.
There’s a clear connotation in the US between the phrase “Colored People” and Jim Crowe laws. It’s not a phrase you use by accident or by messing up the correct term. This was a conscious decision to use racist language, and if it wasn’t conscious it’s because he refers to PoC that way or worse in private, which is the definition of racism.
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If you can’t tell the difference you’re being willfully ignorant. “Colored” is the problem in the phrase, as it has historically only been used in racist ways.
Anyone, especially anyone in government should at least be aware of the historic context of “Colored People” as a phrase and know better.
He 100% used it intentionally. The Republican Party has a history of racist language when referring to People of Color, including members of their own party. “He’s one of the good ones” is a standout moment from the house speaker elections.
It’s not wrong to want our government officials to not use racist language when describing their constituents.
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I’m going to take a wild and crazy guess that you never cared very much to begin with.
To throw another example, there’s no real difference in meaning between ‘gay’ and ‘homo’, but if a conservative Christian calls me a homo, I’m going to be a lot more skeptical of their intentions than if one of my gay friends calls me gay.
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Sure thing, person of dipshit
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The words are the same, but the intent is different.
“why can’t we just call 'em [REDACTED], it just means black in Spanish!”
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I really don’t see how. I mean, if someone asks you not to call them something, how fuckin’ hard is it not to call them that? You don’t need an explanation. You don’t need to offer your opinion. Just. Don’t. Call. Them. That.
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Lemmy seems to consist mostly of white, male tankies that only care about skin color when it benefits their political ideology. Blaxploitation is an effective tool and they cherish it deeply.
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I’ve noticed a lot of downvoted on post/comments showing the stupidity and racism and everything wrong about conservatives. They out here
Making an issue out of a non-issue? Why you wasting our time?
A white racist, promoting a bill to make it illegal for the military to acknowledge racism, uses a racist dog whistle. Well, actually it’s more of a racist fog horn.
But such is the world we now live in, when the racists have gone fully mask off.
Okay so colored people is bad but people of color is good? What is the fucking difference lol.
One puts color first and has been used by racists for centuries to dehumanizing people. The other puts the fact that they are people first, and comes from the oppressed community as a response to colored people.
The NAACP is older than the term people of color and has kept the original name for traditional reasons and because the context of the name fornthe organization means it isn’t being used by racists to discriminate.
Why would anyone even waste their time reading into things this much. More ways to be called a racist then there’s laws.
Because it leads to measurable difference in empathy response:
A 2008 experiment researched teenagers’ perception of epilepsy with respect to people-first language. Teenagers from a summer camp were divided into two groups. One group was asked questions using the term “people with epilepsy”, and the other group was asked using the term “epileptics”, with questions including “Do you think that people with epilepsy/epileptics have more difficulties at school?” and “Do you have prejudice toward people with epilepsy/epileptics?” The study showed that the teenagers had higher “stigma perception” on the Stigma Scale of Epilepsy when hearing the phrase “epileptics” as opposed to “people with epilepsy”.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2008.01899.x
The human brain is weird and wired wrong for modern life. The best way to master our worst impulses is to try and do small things that nudge it in the right direction.
If you’ve ever done Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, it’s a similar idea. Identify behaviours you can practice that help you think the way you want to think.
That’s a really cool study.
People are very quick to discard unconscious biases because they think they’re above it, but they’re not.
You can understand your biases and try to account for it, but unless you really delve into them you won’t know.
Oh I don’t know, I imagine your ancestors being enslaved for a few hundred years probably affects your point of view quite a bit.
Black/African Americans who experienced racism decided they were sick of being called colored people by racists for a couple centuries, and as part of the civil right movement the switch to person of color was adopted to replace it. They didn’t waste time, they reacted to their environment and some other people were willing to listen and respect their self determined group label.
The explanation was pretty simple, maybe you should read it again.
The entire history of the phrases and the people that have used them?
Language is not, and never has been, purely logical, in case this is somehow news to you.
.
