The term started to be outlawed about 40 years ago.

I know, I had friends from all different backgrounds at Uxbridge Tec at the time.

The term was just about tolerated when used by people aged 50 plus 40 years ago, on the grounds they had been through a war, probably hadn't gone to school (or even worked with) people of different cultures and therefore, perhaps, couldn't/wouldn't change their language.

But 40 years on it's hard to believe anyone would be unaware the term is unacceptable.

I did my A levels at Uxbridge Tech in the 1980s!

Actually the term 'coloured' in South Africa is still in use post-apartheid to refer to mixed race people with ancestry from both Africa and Europe/Asia.

It was also used in the US earlier in the 20th century for people whose ancestors were slaves from Africa, as a more neutral term than 'negro' with its pejorative derivatives. Then the term fell out of favour is at was associated with the pre-civil rights era, but still persists in names of organisations such as the NAACP.

My point is that you trivialise racism when you insist on censoring and censuring people for not being up with the latest fashionable terms when they meant no offence. It becomes just a way of making yourself look superior and right-on, like advertising the number of black friends you have.

The world is treading a dangerous path when people genuinely believe words have been 'outlawed', for goodness' sake.

Ah.

I was in S101

I doubt they would have changed the course names in 10 years.

Very happy times for me.

Me also. I had a fab time AND got good grades. Never regretted not doing my A levels at school.

So would I. I doubt it will ever happen

This doesn't mean that people shouldn't be pointed in the right direction so that they don't cause offence.

"Coloured" is a term coined by white people during times of segregation and oppression. If communities of colour wish it to be consigned to the past, it should be consigned to the past. Those still using it because they don't know this (although I do wonder if such people have been living under a rock rather than in multicultural Britain) don't want to give offence, I am sure. Consequently, it's beneficial to provide them with the terms that communities of colour have chosen for themselves - POC, black, Asian, black Britsh, British Asian, etc.

Language matters.

I agree with much of what you said - and we both share a love of salsa and the salsa world - but I have found amongst my argentine tango crowd a growing number of black AT dancers (not just from the UK but much further afield) who love AT and choose to do it. Two of my favourite leads are West Indian and are beautiful AT dancers.

Ballroom? Nah, not so much. They find it too 'artificial' and not as much fun, or as sophisticated as the AT scene. But then AT is truly diverse and utterly inclusive, so it's not surprising.

To be honest, there are hundreds of British kids learning ballroom; go and watch any major medallist competition and you will see them in huge numbers, and to excellent standards. The point being made previously is that there are very few black or Asian kids dancing ballroom.

^^This.
Yes, it's important to be culturally aware, but I know people who have the best of intentions who use old fashioned terms, and I know people who have the worst of intentions who use the "correct" terms.
I also know people who would like to discuss important race-related topics but who don't because they are fearful of making a faux pas, even though they have pretty enlightened ideas. Heavily criticising them before they've even properly started isn't conducive to an open discussion.
Before criticising someone for using outdated expressions, you need to find out if they have outdated ideas as well- it doesn't automatically follow.

It also becomes a little less clear in some peoples' minds because they might have heard the widely used phrase in the US "People of colour" which Oprah Winfrey etc uses. You could equally apply "What- green!?" to that phrase as well. It's true that you have to be thoroughly immersed in it to feel confident that you are using the accepted terms, but for those that aren't immersed in it, it can seem baffling.

So the term 'communities/people of colour' is acceptable, whereas 'coloured' isn't? Why? Because someone decided to take offence at the latter term and to promote the former, thereby giving them licence to 'PC-shame' anyone who didn't get the memo. It's practically the same term. Do you not see the hidden agenda there? (I suggest you see the Wikipedia article on 'Coloureds' to better understand the continued use of the term in South Africa.)

Of course language is powerful, but constantly changing what is and isn't an acceptable word is just a misguided way of trying to achieve an artificial sense of ownership and power over other people's thoughts, without actually examining the context of what they say or the wider points they're making.

A person doesn't own the language used to describe them, and to pretend they do is just an artificial form of enfranchisement, which ignores real forms of powerlessness. It gets to the point where people simply don't want to make threads about real issues like this, because people shout them down over their choice of language; that's the end of politeness and the beginning of the thought police, and it certainly won't stop real racism, even if might push it underground sometimes.

None of us owns language. For example I don't really like the word 'straight' because it implies deviance on the part of gay people, but I'm not going to start a campaign to get the term 'outlawed' or insist people don't use it around me, because I would rather hear the content of what they're saying, and I know that such actions wouldn't affect prejudice anyway.

A while ago a white panelist on 'Question Time' used the perfectly 'acceptable' term 'Afro-Caribbean' to refer to black people with African ancestry but later from the Caribbean islands. A black woman in the audience decided this term was offensive and that he should be saying something else (she wasn't sure what though, she eventually settled on African Caribbean), but she made sure she was suitability outraged and got a grovelling white-guilt apology, which was the point. It's almost as if she felt the panelist had no right to refer to those people at all. So yes, language is powerful, and people are abusing that power with misplaced outrage.

Because this is about Latin and ballroom (SCD)

Nobody is outraged. People simply pointed out to the OP that she was using an outdated term now generally regarded as offensive - so that she was able to go forward without inadvertently offending anyone. This is not PC gone mad: this is helpfulness.

Words don't occur in a vacuum. Context and past uses matter. Most work in language and linguistics acknowledges this. Try the meaning of meaning theory proposed by Ivor Richards as an example.

It's really simple, as I said earlier - don't use terms that were imposed on POC by white people in the supremacist days gone by when POC ask you not to. If you don't know that you've been asked not to and use such terms, you're not being condemned by those who point it out to you: you are being helped.

And when I lay in bed with my wife i say" I love the contrast in our colours" she smiles never moans about the word colour she is my judge (pic on my profile)

Apologies. Yes, badly phrased. I didn't mean to imply barely any kids study ballroom, just that many more study other forms of dance.

I agree with all the posts pointing out that the intersections of various factors - money/socio-economics, what's culturally attractive to various groups, etc etc, mean that British POC are under-represented in ballroom.

As this is unlikely to change any time soon, if the OP would like to see the best of British dance in the POC communities, she'd be best looking outside of Strictly. There's plenty to find.

error

I am not and also a (he )

'Don't use terms', ' don't use it again', 'living under a rock', 'outlawed' - they all sound much more like ordering and shaming someone into silence rather than a helpful nudge to be polite.

There is a difference between being blatantly or subtly offensive in what you are saying, and using a term that someone has decided that they find offensive. Yes words have connotations, but those do not come before the content of what someone is actually saying. You can't legislate for everything someone decides to take offence to (and I would argue that even blatantly offensive verbal communication should not be legislated against).

You will only change the 'acceptable' word again because you want to find a reason to take offence. In the end the only acceptable thing will be silence. Once again: you do not own language and it is foolish to think you achieve any meaningful power by pretending you do.

With the percentage of black people in the UK being about 3% and only a handful of British professional dancers on the programme then there is not a high probability of any of them being black.

I like my coloureds too. I always put them on the 40 degree wash with the non-bleachy washing powder.

Can I just say how much I'm loving your posts in thread, Joshua, it's exactly what I'd say if only I were eloquent enough.

The OP started a well meaning thread and didn't deserve half a dozen 'right ons' clobbering him over the head with their furious finger wagging. One wonders if they actually bothered to grasp the point he was making before their collective knees started to jerk.

Very well said.

I think I will go back to using police terminology - IC3

I actually don't know the answer. I do voluntary work at the local theatre school and they teach ballet, theatre and streetdance. Since it is linked to the local school in an inner London borough, there are children from all backgrounds. However they don't teach ballroom. I would love them to do so and have suggested it as it is my specialist area. But at the moment it isn't on their syllabus. So there might be issues with opportunity.

I have seen some black people attending ballroom lessons at the schools I go to, but they are very much in the minority, even though one school I attend is based in a gym which does attract a mix of ethnicities for other activities, including other dance styles, and so I assume some of it does come down to choice. If you look at International comps there is a lot of Asian participation but not much from some other ethnicities, even from the supposedly inclusive countries like US and Canada.

So my wife is not coloured ?? she will be surprised