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Other than as a facile excuse to be gratuitously offensive about someone, does this thread have any purpose?
I've only heard the phrase coloured in America of late, but then they use African American which is a nonsense in itself. Not all black people are african and not all are American. I remember when Lewis Hamilton was called African American because they couldn't work out what they could say.
Usage
Coloured referring to skin colour is first recorded in the early 17th century and was adopted in the US by emancipated slaves as a term of racial pride after the end of the American Civil War. In the US and Britain it was the accepted term until the 1960s, when it was superseded by black. The term coloured lost favour among black people during this period and is now widely regarded as offensive except in historical contexts and in particular as part of the name of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). In South Africa the term coloured (also written Coloured) has a different history. It is used to refer to people of mixed-race parentage rather than, as elsewhere, to refer to African peoples and their descendants (i.e. as a synonym for black). Under apartheid it was imposed as an official racial designation. However, in modern use the term is not generally considered offensive or derogatory
No, but Abbott's statement that it was "outdated, offensive and revealing" is accurate, for once.
+1Well the "revealing" part is clearly the race card being slapped down on the table as to imply Rudd is secretly a racist. "AH HA!" Shouts Abbott as she sees the mask slip for a mere moment, "I shall now strike the final blow. Begone evil Tory racist" (Goes to Twitter to point out that one word was used in a completely sympathetic response to a question around online abuse, completely diluting all that was said into "OMG she said a word that has historical ties to racist, she is a racist, her whole party is a racist, burn her my Twitter sycophants!!112)
Abbott could have asked for an apology, which Rudd will give, and move on. But no, politics has moved on from playing to the issues of the day, it's all about playing the man now and scoring up those points.
Well the "revealing" part is clearly the race card being slapped down on the table as to imply Rudd is secretly a racist. "AH HA!" Shouts Abbott as she sees the mask slip for a mere moment, "I shall now strike the final blow. Begone evil Tory racist" (Goes to Twitter to point out that one word was used in a completely sympathetic response to a question around online abuse, completely diluting all that was said into "OMG she said a word that has historical ties to racist, she is a racist, her whole party is a racist, burn her my Twitter sycophants!!112)
Abbott could have asked for an apology, which Rudd will give, and move on. But no, politics has moved on from playing to the issues of the day, it's all about playing the man now and scoring up those points.
What's revealing is that Amber Rudd, our Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has apparently never made a proper black acquaintance in her life and never even got word from the grapevine that the term 'coloured' went out the window many decades ago. Seems to indicate how sequestered she is from our now multicultural general public. As are many on this forum it seems.
Really, is this difficult? It's because "coloured" has racist history and connotation. It's the exact term that was used in the US before the civil rights act, Whites only / Coloureds Only. it's the exact term that was often used here in the 50's, 60's and 70's in less formal discrimination such as this...
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It's plain racist. Anyone that doesn't realise it is either playing the fool or downright ignorant of the historical racism.
Yeah, I get the impression most are willing to chalk it up to retardation or an overly sheltered life on the speaker's part. I'm sure Amber Rudd will be happy to admit to being guilty of one or both.Have you spoke to many Black people recently? Most Black people I know couldn't care less as long as you aren't actually a racist
Or the fact that it's not been a negative term in their lifetimes.
Or they prefer to leave the past in the past.
So yeah, ignorant. And Rudd is 55, so she's well aware.
She was a young child when it was last in common use as a term of offence.
We also didn't have the segregation here that places like the states did so doesn't have the same connotation in this country.