Rep. Eli Crane used the derogatory phrase in describing his proposed amendment to a military bill. Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty asked that his words be stricken from the record.
The politically correct word changes every decade. “Black people” used to be more offensive than “colored people”
I’ve been calling black people black people for 30+ years. They never liked the term “African-American” much either, in my experience. That term was made up by white people that overcorrected their racism. I have never had a single black person get offended or upset, because why should someone be offended by their own skin? I interchange “brown people” but that’s more of a catch-all term for everyone that’s not a shade of printer paper like myself.
I know black people who aren’t from anywhere near africa (caribbean) and white people from south africa. Also met plenty of black brits who are neither african nor american! POC is definitely an upgrade from than absurdity. But they drilled it into us for so long it’ll take a while for society to drop it.
I wasn’t sure about a young guys name out here and asked someone “do you know the young black man who’s new in the neighborhood? I wanted to thank him for helping someone I know the other day.” After I helped host an event.
holy shit this person got mad at me. Said I needed to call them african canadian or colored. I get so confused by terms these days. Same with indigenous and native. I live in an area with many, and know some, and different ones prefer different words. I call one of them one term, and other that same one, they might get offended. I try to be as respectful as I can, gets hard.
Example, my therapist goes by indigenous, but her wife goes by native. So I thanked her wife one day for helping me at a indigenous event I was at, and she said “we call it a native event”.
I’m having such a hard time the past 2 years in particular, and trying really hard with all of these changes in terms, pronouns and every time I think I understand it, apparently I don’t. I have one trans friend who I see occasionally and thankfully they agree with me and makes me feel a bit less nutty.
My girlfriend is considering changing her orientation to some new wording I’ve literally never heard of all of a sudden now too. I just found a tonne of new things, like grey sexual, demisexual, etc. People I’ve been in employment/training programs with have changed their name and gender 2-3 times in the past year, and each time I see them I get confused with what to say or call them. It is oddly overwhelming.
sorry this turned into a slight vent
Euphemism treadmill.
In any sensitive, socially fraught context, terminology will just change faster than in other areas of life.
That’s why we no longer use terms like idiot, retard, cripple, imbecile, etc. as neutral, objective terminology. Instead, terms that where initially used as objective, clinical terminology are now exclusively used as slurs and insults.
It’s just that when it comes to race, some people (and it’s often people not affected by it) have a hard time accepting that concept.
As we’ve seen over the past decade (well, past few decades, tbh), changing the word only moves the objectionable meaning onto the new word. The goal is to address the meaning, but it feels like so much energy is being spent on addressing the words themselves that the meaning never gets dealt with…
…which I guess is understandable for those who have given up hope of the meaning being addressed, but then why spend the effort on the word?
As we’ve seen over the past decade (well, past few decades, tbh), changing the word only moves the objectionable meaning onto the new word.
It’s been going on for much longer. Just look up all the clinical terms that came into use in the Victorian era. There’s been an ongoing effort to come up with better terminology. Words came into existence in an effort to have neutral terminology to refer to certain symptoms or conditions or to categorize people or chronic illnesses or ethnicities etc.
It’s just that we no longer use terms like “moron” or “lunatic” or “retard” or “fool” or “insane” or “Mongol” as neutral, objective, clinical terminology.
I think many people get used (and attached) to the terminology that they learned when growing up, unaware that this terminology has been changing at a rapid pace for centuries now, and then get all bent out of shape when they’re being told that the words they were taught as kids are no longer the preferred way of referring to certain conditions/ethnicities/demographic groups etc.
And of course, then there are people who use those expressions with the full intention to insult and malign, only to feign ignorance when called out: “But that’s the word people have always been using! Why are you getting so upset?”
To be fair, if I heared someone say “colored people” I would not be at all surprised to later hear them say “retard” in the same setting.
An easy way to pick out racists in the modern day is if they just casually call black people “blacks.” It seems to be one of the words that, although it’s not used by non-racists, hasn’t been phased out by some of the less explicit racists yet in the way “colored people” has.
Yeah, dead giveaway, they saw “black people” and removed “people” in their head so the verbiage is bound to follow.
It would help if people would stop being aholes and turning terms into offensive ones by intentionally using them insult. “autism” is being used online sometimes in place of “retard” now as an insult. Won’t be long before those of us on the spectrum need a new term because of these clowns.
Every insult word to call someone stupid was once a clinical term (including stupid). I am not kidding look it up that’s quite a long history of doing this, people suck.
Can someone explain how colored people is anymore racist than people of color?
I mean, I’m not claiming it’s not racist, I’m white so I’m not subjected to these terminologies myself, I just can’t wrap my head around why one is different.
TIL “colored people” is offensive. Seems pretty benign to me…?
As a non-American I’m perplexed by this. I remember growing up and hearing the accepted euphemism ‘coloured person’ instead of black person. I’d worry about myself if I ever visited that I’d accidentally cause insult. PC seems to be gone nuts
Do you call white people non-colored people? No? Then why would you call a black person colored? Lol
You never let me answer before your smarmy remark. But beleive it or not back then, yes you could. Are white people actually ‘white’? Are black people actually ‘black’? It was a means to denote race the same as black and white is these days. My point was I didn’t realise this term was an actual insult now but it’s good to know. Have off with your lol
(Not American) yeah, I always thought it sounded dumb, but didn’t know it was a slur too.
It was a term du jour back in the Jim Crow (read: hyper racist) era. That particular phrasing has baggage.
Wow, TIL. As a non-American, there are many such facts I wasn’t aware of, let alone many details that now seem obscure or lost (for a variety of reasons, like the attempt to erase certain stuff from history or prevent them from being taught in schools).
I do hate how history can muddy language like that. Terms like “colored people” should mean literally people who are colored… and nothing else. I’ve never been one to actually use that term because it’s so non-specific; but I never knew it had a derogatory connotation either.
Context and intent is important. Faking ignorance about knowing if it was offensive is an equally important consideration.
Honestly, this has more nuance than you’d immediately think. Dude’s lived through at least a few iterations of euphemisms that turned into pejoratives, and keeping it straight can be difficult. Depending on the time period, negro, colored, African American, and black could all be considered kind or harsh. That said, definitely racist as hell given he continues with…
“The military was never intended to be, you know, inclusive. Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards”
“The military was never intended to be, you know, inclusive. Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards”
Ah, yeah he’s a racist piece of shit. And also, unsurprisingly, 100% wrong. Speaking as a veteran (US), the diversity of our military is a HUGE source of its strength. This dumbass is literally advocating for weakening our military for the sake of being racist.
That’s not just stupid, that’s dangerous stupid.
Last part you quoted seems reasonable, though.
To paraphrase, he doesn’t want all of those diverse sorts, just the good ones. It’s a dog whistle at an octave that even octogenarians can hear.
Is he saying people should be denied access to the military even if they meet the miliary’s standards?
Forgive my brevity. Yes. Generally, and subconsciously, people prefer to see themselves in those they put in leadership positions. This policy will exclusively make military officers paler as a result, not better. The military has been promoting people of color to higher positions in line with racial enlistment proportions for like 50 years without issue. Reduced potential for bias is always welcome.
How is the last bit racist? Sounds like he’s saying it’s purely based on measurable standards, that race/ethnicity is not a factor
To paraphrase, he doesn’t want all of those diverse sorts, just the good ones. It’s a dog whistle at an octave that even octogenarians can hear.
It’s been racist for several decades, and it’s not benign at all.
not a lot of difference between “colored people” and “people of color”
That’s like saying there’s not a lot of difference between saying “me beat” or “beat me.”
Simple words aside, there’s a big difference in meaning between the two.
Yeah, I’m really disappointed in this comment section right now. I had no idea this was something still up for debate.
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You may be right originally, however colored people mostly means “inferior people” or “people who shouldn’t have equal rights” since that was the usage of the term. People of color has only been used to refer to people neutrally, so it doesn’t have thar context.
N***r means black, so your exact same argument can be used to justify using that word, but we all agree it’s not ok, right? (I really hope there’s no argument about it.)
“People of color” wasn’t a term used in the Jim Crow South. They called them “colored people” to dehumanize them. The term “colored people” has a lot of hateful baggage, while the term “people of color” is them reclaiming the term, on their own terms.
The English language does not exist in a vacuum.
There’s a difference between “I helped my uncle, Jack, off his horse” and “I helped my uncle jack off his horse”. Retard used to just be a synonym for slow, but you won’t be bleeped if you call someone slow on national television. Things like context, usage, and history matter.
I think a better example is “I’m beat” vs “beats me”. Both actually mean something (“I’m tired/exhausted” vs “I don’t know”) and both mean completely different things, despite using the exact same words in a different configuration. And they mean different things because they’re used in different ways. Just because they use the same words that doesn’t mean they’re automatically the same. And even if they referred to roughly the same thing, again, how they’re used and in what context makes a big difference. One is historically used almost exclusively by racists in a derogatory manner, the other is the one the people being referred to have said they prefer between the two.
You’re missing the point of an analogy. People are arguing that “colored people” should have no intrinsic difference than the phrase “people of color.” But that’s not how society works. Words are not the offensive part in themselves but the meaning and connotation behind them. “Colored people” is a phrase from the American segregation era and when that ended the phrase was kept by racists and abandoned by the rest of American society. People of color called themselves a new name or names and the rest of society joined them. People in the US who insist on using the term “colored people” in 2023 are generally assumed by the public to be holding onto a 1950s mindset or racist. It’s viewed as a racist thing to say, whether done intentionally or not.
This willfully disregards the history of the terms and tries to justify itself on pedantry alone. By your logic, since it refers to people of color as well, the n-word is also perfectly fine. If you agree, there’s no hope for you here.
That’s like saying there’s not a lot of difference between saying “me beat” or “beat me.”
no, that’s not the same thing. the difference between “colored people” and “people of color” is similar to the difference between “a red apple” and “an apple that is red”. In English, an adjective can be placed before a noun or after a noun, with the latter formatted with a preposition such as “of”.
Edit: not sure why i’m being downvoted here - do you all not speak English? If you give a comparison it should be apples to apples, not apples to pineapples.
I’m going to assume you aren’t American. “Colored” is an anachronistic term in the U.S., it was used during an era before civil rights laws and when discrimination was rampant. The only people who continued to use the term were racists, so the term “colored” and “negro” are no longer used in general American society. Arguing historical placement order in general English language is irrelevant when the specific phrase has a well-known connotation in the U.S.
Linguistically? Sure.
Historically? Well, “colored people” is the term used in Apartheid South Africa and in Jim Crow America by racists and white supremacists and people longing for the slavery era in order to refer to people that were regarded and treated as inferior, while “People of Color” is the term that a large majority seems to prefer as the term to refer to themselves.
Not even Linguistically. Colored people implies, that people are originally without color, and then some people have been painted. Hence, implying that no color is the norm.
Well, it implies “whiteness” as the norm - i.e. that it’s not even necessary to mention that somebody is “white” (as in “a man was seen at the station”) because the default assumption is that a certain ethnicity that a society was built for is the “norm,” and it’s only worth mentioning race as a qualifier (as in “a colored man was seen at the station”) when referring to a member of the outside group.
However, I’d still argue that this, too, is a sociological rather than a linguistical concept.
Ohpresshawn!
I don’t get how people of colour is any better lmao
The fact that this racist-at-best, woefully-ignorant-at-worst comment is at +40 votes right now is pretty telling to me. Guess the userbase of lemmy.world is pretty bigoted.
It’s been leaning right a bit too heavily lately which is really bumming me out tbh
This is going to be natural with the federated nature of Lemmy, some instances are going to enable far right rhetoric. Block instances, communities and users you dislike. You have more power here to adjust your feed than Reddit.
It’s aggressively libbed out, what are you talking about? I’ve seen literally nothing right wing.
The good news is that you don’t need to understand. You just need to accept that this is the case because the people it hurts say so.
You can also go learn about the history and understand if you want, but I’m also all for being lazy and just trusting the people who are impacted.
this logic is so flawed honestly
people can choose to “be hurt” by literally any word and it’s entirely subjective and ephemeral because what upsets them today may not tomorrow and what is ok changes just as easily
word policing is just a losing battle no matter how you try and justify it and the massive sensitivity towards words just makes people look ridiculous
Hey look, it’s someone who doesn’t have a horse in the race and who can’t recognize their privilege.
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Cuts both ways. You’re right now word policing by saying that phrases like “people of color” doesn’t conform to how you want words to be used and it upsets your sensibilities.
And what’s the point of communicating if you aren’t going to make considerations about the people you’re communicating with? Just like to hear the sound of your own voice, or think the words you’re writing look pretty on your screen? If you want people to care about what you’re saying you need to make an effort to learn how to use words effectively. It’s not up to the rest of the world to conform to your word preferences.
That would only be true if we gave every single hurt feeling equal weight, but PoC in America have a long history of pretty blatant discrimination, specifically using the term “colored people”, so I don’t see much wrong with not using the phrase because they’ve asked you not to. It’s not like we’re entertaining every person that wants to be referred to as a “Hylian Deku scrub” or something.
It puts the “people” part first. This can be seen as prioritizing them as being people first and their skin color second.
person of black
Because it’s all signalling, there’s nothing really there to get. The reason “people of colour” is okay and “coloured people” isn’t isn’t because of any real difference between the phrases, but because people who use the former are generally supportive of them, while people who use the latter aren’t.
The word “colored” shouldn’t be used in a race context at all.
I get that activists like “people-centered” language nowadays, but in essence, it is kind of weird. Maybe it’s just because I have NVLD that I’m always analyzing these language things. Like in a community with which I’m more aligned, the autistic community, “person with autism” doesn’t sound any better to me than “autistic person.” Of course, as someone with NVLD, you’re not always described as autistic to begin with. I prefer the word “minorities” to “people of color” but what are currently minority communities now are on track to become a majority in some communities, and maybe the country at large one day too, so that term may likely be rendered inaccurate soon. Of course “colored people” had been an acceptable term a few decades ago so maybe this guy is just behind on the times. Still, I do find it weird how society often tires of some words and phrases over a few generations.
An accepted term by who? Why does that matter? It’s not now and you’d have to be pretty far up your own butt to miss that. Either way they should know this as politicians representing all kinds of people. There’s no excuse. The fact that he said it so casually is pretty damning. People that aren’t actually racist and that care about those they’re discussing would never make this slip.
The logic behind this change is that it puts the PERSON first. You’re first and foremost a person, and then after that you’re using a descriptor. Usually this terminology is used to be collective of anyone not white, because it’s used in context of the unique experiences that anyone not white has to navigate all their life, at least in US. Examples such as people of color are more likely to be pulled over by police, people of color have a harder time finding makeup that suits their skin tone, etc.
If you’re just talking about an individual or a group without that context it’s much more common to hear them just referred to as black, or whatever ethnicity they are, if its even relevant.
I know it can all feel arbitrary when words are suddenly not okay anymore, but I think it is because these acceptable terms for marginalized people eventually get used so often in a hateful context, they may try to adopt a new term. I mean many women now cringe hard and go on alert for red flags whenever they see women referred to as female, maybe can’t even stand it anymore despite the context, because it has been so consistently used by a very specific type of person.
In that case, I expect to be referred to as a “person of whiteness” as I was unaware that I was being insulted all this time when called a “white person” since “person” isn’t the first word.
I wasn’t mad about it when I didn’t know people meant to dehumanize me by saying those words in that order rather than the reversed order, but now that you have informed me, I am.
Same with “male,” the term is “man,” “male” is dehumanizing as well since we use it to describe animals that produce sperm. In fact, sperm is dehumanizing because animals have it too, so I expect human sperm to be renamed so that it doesn’t share any commonality with nature that could suggest I’m also part of nature. Also, some people I don’t like have called me “male,” so I don’t like it. While I’m at it some of those people have called me a sarcastic asshole, and so instead I’d like to be called a sardonic sphincter since it has alliteration and nobody I don’t like has called me that yet.
Meanwhile in the real world, social norms exist.
Yes, and if I could convince enough people that my ridiculous shit above was a good idea, it would become one. It would still however be just as ridiculous.
What’s more, at one time not too long ago homophobia and racism were social norms, so maybe clinging to that notion that “societal norms” are somehow an arbiter of goodness isn’t always necessarily true. Just because enough people say something, that doesn’t mean they’re right, and just because the minority or even only one person is saying something that doesn’t mean they’re wrong, either. One has to evaluate an argument (or whatever) by the argument itself, not by how many followers its speaker has nor by what one’s friends think of the speaker or his words.
Feeeeemaaaales
wrings hands Ferengily
Rule of acquisition 31 states, “Never make fun of a Ferengi’s mother. Insult something he cares about instead.”
That’s really splitting hairs, but okay.
How do you refer to white people?
People of whiteness of course
Ah yes, the natural counter to the widely used “People of blackness”
People of whiteness are people of rightness my uncle used to say
I appreciate and agree with all you’ve said here, just one small thing- “female” is fine when used as an adjective, I don’t think anyone is bothered by that. “The female staff member,” “the author is female” etc. is not problematic. It’s when it is used as a noun that flags are raised- “That female over there,” “the author is a female.” Then it sounds like you’re talking about some other kind of creature, not a human woman.
Sure and that’s a really great response! It’s also kind of adapting the same point I was trying to make. Obviously something as complex as race relations in America is going to not have such clear boundaries with what is acceptable language and why, but saying colored people makes it a description of the noun. People of color is taking that noun and putting it first.
Because it has a different connotation. It’s generally used by a different demographic, often to refer to themselves, and doesn’t have the unfortunate history that “coloured people” has. Just because they’re similar that doesn’t make them the same. Most people I’ve seen using the term “coloured people” aren’t exactly known for being not-racist. Most people I’ve seen using “people of colour” are, well, people of colour. We sometimes need a shorthand for people who aren’t white but may or may not be black, and personally I tend to go with whatever the people being referred to generally prefer.
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I think a major aspect that seems to be ignored pretty often is that “people of colour” is used a lot by non-white people, while “coloured people” isn’t as much. Sometimes we need a shorthand for people who aren’t white but may or may not be black, and I generally think that going with the version that the people being referred to prefer is usually the more respectful choice.
You can tell that he knows he shouldn’t say it because he immediately self-corrects and says, “black people”. It’s just that the slip already happened and he knows it can’t be undone, so he keeps going to try to minimize the impact.
I had several coworkers at Best Buy that called black people colored. I got into so many arguments. Like dude, that’s racist as fuck. The sad thing is most folks at that store didn’t see the problem with it.
“Colored people bad”
“People of color good”
Hey look everybody, this guy doesn’t understand nuance!
This is a good user name :) TMV forever!
lol
What is the difference between term “coloured people” and “black people”? For a foreigner.
Because they sounds similar for me: both describe a group of people by their skin colourThe issue comes from context. Historically, in the US, “colored people” WAS the term used to discuss black people in a derogatory fashion. Especially during segregation “no colored people allowed” for bathrooms, or for the the water fountain blacks were allowed to use. “Colored people allowed”
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I mean, racists overwhelmingly also deny anthropogenic climate change. It seems silly to be upset at people who are voting against a candidate you want then to vote against, just because they’re not doing it for the reason you want them to.
The question should really be, how did everyone react to this? Yes one was upset, but there must be a good amount of people there, lets see their faces and what they did, let them show their true colors, not in the ads they sell, but their actions in this moment.
Some of these comments are super disappointing. Language is constantly changing, why wouldn’t the words minority groups use change as well? Especially considering bigoted slang is also constantly changing.
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty asked that his words be stricken from the record.
Keep the words in the record. Posterity should know.
Reps are timed when they talk so they can amend the congressional record, because they might have wanted to say something but weren’t given enough floortime. I am not a 100% but I think Senators are not allowed to amend the record.
Yeah that was rather short sided by the lady. But I don’t blame her one bit.
Just fyi, it’s short-sighted.
Ohh snap. Normally I’m the one correcting people! Thanks for telling me, I hate saying the wrong words lol
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What the fuck is wrong with the GOP right now?
How hard is it to not slip a racial slur or try to say that white nationalism isn’t racist on national TV?
Disgusting, but I don’t really see the point in having it stricken from the record. Keep it on record so it’s part of Crane’s legacy. I mean, why hide that he’s a racist?
Unfortunately, the chamber’s usually pretty empty when it’s time for floor speeches.
Yet another complete piece of shit I don’t like this regression to outspoken racism being okay.
Would it have been okay if he reversed it and said People of Color?
Yes, that is an accepted phrase today.
That’s what I thought.
What’s the point you’re trying to make?
It’s a question. Nothing more than that.
So if you already thought that the accepted phrase today was “People of Color,” then what was the purpose of asking that question?
Progressives change the name of the cohort every few years, I was just checking.
