Heric, the reason I don't say "colored" at all anymore is simply because it's gone out of style and I say "Black" instead because it's come into style....but I did have a Black girlfriend from England a few years back and she proudly used the term "women of color" a great deal when describing herself and other Black or brown-skinned women (such as East Indian women, for instance). I didn't find it offensive when she did that, although it was an expression I hadn't heard for some time. I knew she didn't mean anything offensive by it.

I don't find it offensive to call a retarded person retarded when no offense is meant. I don't find it offensive to call a blind person blind or a deaf person deaf or a lame person lame when no offense is meant. If one wishes to call them by some more complex phrases such as: "developmentally handicapped" or "sight impaired" or "hearing impaired" or "suffering an ambulatory handicap" or some cumbersome thing like that...well, fine, do that if it pleases you, but I don't think it will win you some kind of special morality and sensitivity medals or get you into "heaven" (I'm speaking figuratively, not literally when I say that).