BS: A person of color and a colored person

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 04:28 PM

I won't do the PC thing if it just stresses differences instead of commonalities.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 05:32 PM

There are important aspects of racism that need to be dealt with,Being politically correct or using the latest correct terminology is not paramount in fighting racism, there have been examples quoted in this thread of the confusion and contradiction of different terms meaning different things in different places, what has happened is that the political establishment has got cleverer it wants to give the impression of political equality, we now have in the uk people like priti patel. and a us president obama, they are still the man in the mask, they allow at last different puppets in of different hues to help run their exploitation gee we had two brown puppets, obama and patel, but who pulls the strings.and there is still inequality between races and in societyThe Man in the Mask

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1971 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1999. A portrait of Richard Nixon, and Richard Nixons in general.


Come sit down beside me before the big T.V.
And watch the funny pictures they have there to look at,
Shampoo for your hair and the last polar bear,
And the man on the moon who was walking around
Then left, leaving junk on the once virgin ground.

There's old timey movies with old fashioned dresses,
The kidnap of babies and other such messes,
There's football and baseball and guys selling cars,
And then there's The Man in the Mask.

Chorus:
They say it's his face, but I just can't believe it.
It looks like a mask that I saw in the store.
It talks with deep feeling about ending some war
And stopping inflation, and it's so fantastic,
You'll cry while you're laughing, and roll on the floor.

Every four years he puts a new mask on.
Each one is worse than the one he had before,
But the words are the same and the same earnest manner,
About ending inflation and stopping the war.

The sponsors paid out a million of millions
To get him up there with his magic routine,
But it's really a bargain, 'cause there's such a margin
In war and inflation and the big T.V. screen
That gives us The Man in the Mask.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 02:32 PM

If we're onto spelling howlers, I have dozens up my sleeve from my teaching days.
I asked my class of 7yr olds to write a lovely presents wish-list for Father Christmas, and decorate it with pictures of angels, holly and so on.
One dear little girl wrote in huge wonky letters "I want a pair of tits". I often wondered if Father Christmas obliged.
Another class was set to write a story about a knight. I suggested they describe his horse (description was everything) and name it with an inspiring name. One boy wrote, "His hores was big and strong and had big feet, It was corld Fluffy."
Finally, another story was set in the Middle Ages, and a child wrote "The men went out to cut the corn. The fields were humming with incest."

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: meself
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 02:20 PM

... um ... how about "Wikkpedidia" and "spalling?" Mea cupla! I mean, culpa ... ! I mean, a couple for me .....

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 01:54 PM

Gray, too.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 12:39 PM

Use either -ise or -ize in the UK. Use only -ize in the US. meself is quite right. It always amuses me when Brits huff and puff about this.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 12:03 PM

Spelling pedants may find more of significance in how "coloured" and "colored"
relate to and impact on this issue
either side of the Atlantic...???


["collared" having far more sinister connotations...

.. and how culturally insensitive is the fetish scene "slave collar"...!!!???]

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: meself
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 11:49 AM

"CAPITALISE [please not original spelling]"

"The -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen as an Americanism in Britain. It has been in use since the 15th century, predating -ise by over a century." - Wikkpedidia

What do you have against the original spalling?

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 02:51 AM

and you CAPITALISE [please not original spelling] Grey?

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 12:54 AM

I don't capitalize much these days. I am also against stressing individual differences rather than commonalities.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 11:49 PM

I worked with a guy in Alaska who had a Scottish family name. He looked more South American than Scottish, and in fact, I learned later, was Guatemalen born and adopted into an American family of Scottish derivation. My co-worker totally adopted, in his turn, his family's ethnicity. He would practice bagpiping in the stairwells when we worked late. I learned later he went to Scotland to meet others of the lineage and was treated like one of the clan.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: meself
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 06:00 PM

Re: capitalization. Is it in this thread that someone mentioned that one of the prominent style-guides recommends capitalizing 'black' but not 'white'? I'm not sure if that would be based on any kind of logic, or if it is simply indicating common usage. I recall years ago, Azizi pointing out that 'black' as an indicator of race should be capitalized - as, for instance, 'Caucasian' - and clearly it was what she as a Black person preferred, so since then I've made a point of capitalizing 'Black', which I hadn't been in the habit of. To be consistent, I often capitalize 'White' if I'm going to be using both terms - but sometimes you don't know how you're going to end up wording something, and if you end up only using the term 'White', capitalized, it comes off as chauvinistic - but it feels a bit precious to be going through what you wrote in some post on the internet and fussing over whether you capitalized or didn't some word or other. I think I ran into that situation earlier in this thread, and decided that as a w/White person, I couldn't care less if 'white' is capitalized or not, but if it's important to a lot of Black people that that term be capitalized, I only care enough to go ahead and capitalize it - it doesn't take much effort, after all.

I had a similar sort of realization back when we were being hectored about using generic male pronouns, but no one could agree what exactly we were supposed to replace them with (she/he? s/he?, etc.) - it occurred to me that I didn't feel my maleness was under threat, so just started using the feminine pronouns instead.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 05:25 PM

it seems its not a black and white issue but one with shades of grey

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 04:47 PM

Back to the discussion of"colored person" and "person of color."

There was an article in my newspaper today about the DA of Wyandotte County, Kansas, a black man. The article referred to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), which is still an important and active group. I would not wish to inform them that their name is politically incorrect.

The DA was quoted, and he used the phrase "person of color," so I believe it's all right.

Funny thing - the paper capitalizes Black as a group but not white. Today I saw references to the Black community and to a missing white woman.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 04:41 AM

There must be a word for the Goggle ad I see hovering above me as I write this.
It is for amazingly deceptive printing on T-Shirts that for all the world would tempt a someone to buy, yet no doubt in my mind would dissapoint on purchase. They are clearly Photoshopped.

The best I can come up with is mendacious
Or should I suggest Goggle I'd

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 04:14 AM

Dick - no problems..

We can have our occasional silly little squabbles...

But we remain mudcat music/politics mates
with far more in common that unites us,
than any petty differences that divide us...

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: BobL
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 04:06 AM

Eliza's story (17 Nov 20 - 07:52 AM) reminds me of the photographer's kid calling out "Look Dad - a negative!"

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 03:32 AM

i am sure there are a lot of people who might want to kick you , but i am not one of them,Have a nice day,   stay safe

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 12:43 AM

PS Her name was Priscilla Dieseldorf.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 12:33 AM

Thats more Jewish than me since my step dad was 100% Jewish.
He was a clerk in the US Army in London but saw action in Germany at the end of the war. By clever paper schuffling and clerk magic fairy dust he managed to adopt me from a Liebensborne orphanage in Dusseldorf at the urging from a rabbi that said it would be a mitzvah and atonement for killing nazis. While most GI were bringing home booty, my step dad brought me to America to meet my step mom. My biological parents were probably strangers to each other but its unknown. As a pig in a poke I probably was a disappointment since I was not a scholar or avid reader early on probably due to dyslexia. I did very poorly with languages.
Starting with Hebrew study to be bar mitvahed I was given the choice of religious studies or not. I chose not, but more or less I identified with the culture.
Later on I heard that Ghandi advised a Hindu to adopt a Muslim man's son after a tragic killing and bring up the boy as a Muslim to attone. There were a couple of moral parallels but sort of opposite to my history. One thing is for sure - I'm walking proof that there was no master race.

One interesting irony was that my first girl friend from Guatamala was the child of a German couple who escaped Germany and joined the grandfather who was an archeologist unearthing the Mayan civiliztion.
What does this mean? Mostly that Ancestry.com would be a waste of time for me. :^/

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 05:46 PM

Dick - We never know when or what comical random statements you will post out of the blue in a thread..

"i dont know many white supremacists.".. classic...!!!

It's like on Craggy Island when Father Jack
suddenly wakes from a comatose slumber
yelling the first thing that comes out his mouth...

btw.. Have you forgotten I'm quarter Jew,
which would be a bit of an awkward inner conflict
if the other 3/4 of me were a white supremacist...!!!???

The n@zis would have dictated my racial identity as "Mischling of the second degree"..

That's still enough for me to get my head kicked in, or worse,
by modern day neo fascists...

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 04:51 PM

what make you think i want to know any, i am saying i do not know many, that does not mean they do not exist, i am sure there are lots ,but i must move in different circles to you, are you a member of a white nationalist group. i thought you were what bonzo called a lefty. i didmnt think you were a racist or white supremacist , please tell me you are not

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 03:04 PM

This 'naming by colour' business works the other way round too. In all the W African countries I've visited, little children would call out "Eh! Toubabe!" meaning, "Oi! Whitey!" They'd grin and laugh. I found it very endearing. After all, in spite of a bit of a tan, I was very white-skinned compared to them. And I knew full well they meant no harm.
However, at university, I had for a brief time a Scottish boyfriend, from Fife. He took me home to meet his parents, and they were very anti-English (a touch of what I call Braveheart-itis). When they learned that not only was I from England, but born and raised in dreaded LONDON, you'd think I was a mass murderer. Fortunately, my surname is very Scottish, and my ancestors hailed from Caithness way. This exonerated me somewhat and I was offered a cup of tea and some black bun. Then I let out that my mother was Irish. Oh dear. (I didn't see him again!)

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 10:34 AM

errrmmm...???

How many do you want to know...?????

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 10:26 AM

i dont know many white supremacists.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 08:37 AM

Speaking of human colors I met a Chinese young lady who was whiter than me and I am practicly albino. I saw the most uniquely golden colored hispanic in a drive thru and remarked how envious I was of his profoundly golden hue. The most rare skin color is Brahman bright blue caused by silver injestion. Its been a long time since I have seen a blue black colored person. Palamino albino people are also beautiful.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 08:28 AM

It's not really surprising just how many white supremacists
are such unfit, unhealthy, unintelligent, unattractive, specimens of humanity...

Übermensch...??? yeah.. right...

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 08:04 AM

Lovely story!

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 07:52 AM

hen I was a young girl in the fifties, the only 'black' men around were chimney sweeps and the chaps who brought the coal (on their backs, and they shot it into the bunker). But one day, while on the bus with my mum, a real black man got on. I think he was a Jamaican. I shouted out, "Mummy! Look! A chimney sweep has got on the bus!!" My mother nearly died of shame, and apologised profusely. But the bloke laughed like a drain and patted my shoulder. He was so nice, and I was very struck by his handsome face and gorgeously white teeth.
I didn't know that one day I'd be happily married to an extremely black man, who isn't at all bothered by how people refer to him.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 06:51 AM

I've said it so many times, language is communication.

If the conversation is about football, the word should be inclusive and acknowledge there are female type blokettes who play the bountiful (sic) game.

If there are a group of people of various ethnic origins - how do you define any one of them? In the Arsenal shirt? In the same team? With the big nose? Er, slippery slope there. By name? Not if it is nebulous.

Labels are there to aid communication, fergawdsake green is a label. If you object to labels, accept being ignored.

Time was when dark, without qualification, referred hair colour first. In the UK anyway.

It is typical of PC to trip itself up when a person is trying desperately to demonstrate inclusivity and is hectored by the folks who he is trying to please. Not that I care about one wit football BTW. There is too much of it right up to the top of politics. And both of those are a religion IMNSHO.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 03:50 PM

"He's not even from our village!"

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Jos
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 01:34 PM

That reminds me of the old story (maybe true) about Oxford dons sunbathing naked on the river bank when some young ladies go past in a punt. Most of the men quickly cover their nether regions but one simply covers his face, saying "I'm usually recognised by my face. I don't know about you."

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 12:44 PM

That reminds me of that old cowboy joke:

"Howdy! Say, haven't I seen your face somewhere before?"

"Nope, it's always been here between mah two ears..."


"Say, haven't I seen your vagina somewhere before?"

"Nope, it's always been here betw..."

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 12:22 PM

It's weird that wherever our mother's vaginas were at the time of our births,
is supposed to fix and dictate our legal and national identities
for the rest of our lives...?????


.. crikey.. if my mum hadn't been evacuated during the war
she'd have given birth to Brummies...!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 11:59 AM

i consider myself a european but i am still what it says on my birth cert born in england

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: meself
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 11:41 AM

It's a curious business, the American use of "color" (apart from the spelling) that has emerged from their troubled history of race relations: it is not unusual to see some public figure referred to as a "Person Of Color" when in fact they would be unnoticeable for their "color" in a random group off the street. I saw a woman interviewed yesterday who was the "first Person Of Color" to be elected as such-and-such: she was Latina, but whiter than I am - I am thoroughly "white", but have one of those light-tan skin-tones, but she was white as snow - but a "Person of Color".

If Kamala Harris had gone to my multi-ethnic high school, I don't think anyone would have regarded her as "Black"; she would have been just another person a little further to one end of the skin-tone spectrum.

Just an observation; not a rant ... !

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 06:04 AM

I'm more inclined to consider myself European than British..

English get's the Bronze medal...

Being white is the least interesting thing about me...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Allan Conn
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 03:16 AM

It will be interesting to see how things change next year as of course the last census was before the 2014 referendum. The question of identity was maybe less politicised in 2011 as it will be in 2021. I'd still expect some degree of British identity as being in the minority but I think there might be a bit more this time round as folk make a choice based more on politics. I know my wife who is a No supporter (the question is best avoided in our house to keep away from arguments) used to call herself Scottish and English as she has one parent from each country and was born and raised in Norfolk. Now she identifies as British Only and refuses to say she is either English or Scottish!!!

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Allan Conn
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 03:03 AM

Re British identity in Scotland you have to take the census results with some caution. It showed 62% of Scots identified as Scottish only. 18% identified as Scottish & British. Only 8% identified as British. I imagine the bulk of folk who identified as British only were probably not Scottish born.

However there are two things to note. The question only gave folk the chance to be either Scottish Only - or Scottish and British. This was like having to give Scottish and British equal billing. Other polls have asked a similar question but give the option to put Scottish first with British second. They tended to show more folk choosing British to some degree - but not giving it equal billing with the Scottish identity. Hence it can be how you ask the question. Though Scottish Only still tended to show about 40% odd or so.

Plus it is secondly what is meant by British identity. If people think they are being asked to define their actual nationality as British then they are less likely to do so - especially for the 50%+ percent or so who favour independence! However many like myself would identify as Scottish by nationality - but I am happy to view myself as British in a geographic, familial sense. Like Swedes and Danes are Scandinavians etc.

As said previously people will identify themselves as they identify themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 08:57 PM

I am an *American*.. I am also a former Kansan and a current Marylander. I am also a resident of Wheaton... which is merely a convenient designation of one area of Silver Spring.
   It makes little difference unless I am identifying as one level or another for political, sports or legal I.D. purposes. I no longer care to associate myself with some aspects of politics and culture in Kansas, but that is where I spent most of the first part of my life.
   No matter the context, I will always be an American. There are similar levels in almost every country. I mean no disrespect to anyone if I use 'Brit' as convenient short form... as 90% of my remote ancestry is British.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 04:34 PM

Welsh and Scottish people seem to prefer calling themselves that, rather than British. Though of course geographically the term is correct.

I wonder if when the Scots have seceded, those in English who prefer it will continually to use it?

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 04:30 PM

"The first Western?"

Cops and robbers still (?) ok to play.

Cowboys and Indians, less so.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 03:59 PM

When I first got to university, I moved into a dorm which had been a hispanic themed house. I got into a long discussion with a Mexican-American upper classman about the nature of identity and using terminology to avoid offense or provoke offense. He said he personally kept things simple: "If they use a bad word and they're smiling, I don't take offense. If they're not smiling, it's clobbering time."

My mother had pointed me to a line from the first western, "The Virginian": "When you call me that, smile!" So things had not changed. That was long before the internet.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Allan Conn
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 03:09 PM

Well aye certain nuts will rant all they want but in the end each and every one of us will identify as we want. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 02:39 PM

Allan - tell that to the "if you aint with us, you're against us" fanatical nationalists...

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: Allan Conn
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 02:36 PM

You can't dictate how folk self identify. If someone self identifies as British then that is up to them. If English then just the same. If both then just the same. Up to the individual surely?

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 01:46 PM

Dick - nowt to disagree with there...

Billy Bragg tried that approach of reappropriating English Identity
for the progressive left.
But folks seemed indifferent, or unreasonably unaccepting of that movement.

Probably because of general dislike for Billy Bragg...???

I try similar tactics when I engage in futile debate
with far right nut jobs on youtube...

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 01:35 PM

i am an internationalist.but i do not see why the extreme right should be allowed to hijack being english.
i am not proud of some of the things british imperialists have done., or aspects of racism that englsh and british people have done, the same as your wife is welsh, so i am English

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 12:16 PM

I'm an internationalist and couldn't give a monkeys
about concepts of national identity.
But for practical purposes I'm ok about being British..

My wife enjoys playing the game of being 'proud to be Welsh';
it's a bit of fun for her to join in with..

She doesn't take it too seriously..
.. to the extent of fanatically wanting to kill anyone
for not being Welsh..

.. well maybe during England v Wales in the 6 nations...

She is sad to acknowledge how historically racist her country has been
to black Welsh folks.

Subject: RE: BS: A person of color and a colored person
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Nov 20 - 11:53 AM

PFR, yeah the nutcases, they often wave the union jack and not the st georges flag.
well i was born in england that makes me english the same as someone born in scotland is scottish, scottish and welsh people sometimes take offence at being called british. that is my privilege too
i was born in england [ beyond my control] but choose to live in ireland