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forcing people of colour who don't consider themselves as black, and who on no objective analysis are black, to be called black shouldn't be acceptable
I'm pretty sure this is not what is being suggested.
I read it more like - don't call me BAME, call me Black. Which I can get behind on an individual level, but I'm not sure about at a structural level. I'm personally like - don't call me BAME but I don't like any of the available words either so, shrug.Edit: Also, "to the detriment of black people" is real. BAME is used to cover up inequality - with generic "diversity" used to mask lack of black participation, and BAME stats masking specifically worse outcomes for black people.
hoefla-
That's a good point, and one I confess I hadn't thought of. I suppose the problem I have with that suggestion is that it's somewhat redolant of the 'All Lives Matters' argument. It may well be that black people suffer a greater degree of discrimation that other people of colour who aren't black and wouldn't identify as black. I don't feel I'm in a position to say whether or not that is true. But to claim that being black should be differentiated from being a member of another ethnic minority (in a white majority country) seems equally wrong.
I agree that on an individual level that being descibed as 'BAME' when you identify as being black could be used to minimize or mitigate the discrimination that people who are black, rather than Asian/Arab/SE Asian, would suffer. However, it seems to me that there needs to be a term denoting people who are not white, and who suffer discrimination on the basis of the colour of their skin. I'm not sure BAME is the right term, but I can't honestly think of anything else that is an improvement.
I suppose in a sense this is analogous to Aesop's fable about the man and the donkey - you're never going to end up with a terminology that everyone is happy with. At the moment, the term 'people of colour' seems broadly unobjectionable, hence my use of that term. I can't help but think, however, that terminology is less important that action. Words and symobology are important, and it seems to me it's obviously important that racially derogative terms should not be used, other than by people of the race in question who are seeking to subvert those terms as a means of self-empowerment. I do think however, that there needs to be some neutral ground, so that racial differences can be described in a non-pejorvative sense. If that isn't the case then it seems to me that we end up falling into the 'colour-blind' trap, where people claim that a failure to engage with systemic discrimination is a virtue.
Again, usual caveats apply. I'm here to learn, not to preach. I'm grateful this thread exists. It has caused me to question quite quite a few of the assumptions I'd taken as read, and I'd like to think of this as a journey rather than a destination.
Edited for typos and for clarity.
Brommers
I can understand if Habeeb doesn't like the term BAME. Even to my wholly white ears it seems clumsy. However, surely the point of the term BAME is that it is inclusive, and covers people of colour who are the victims of discrimination who would not self-identify as being black. Moroccans, Algerians, Persians, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Japanese and Korean to name but a few. I'm pretty sure they don't consider themselves as being black, and I wouldn't be comfortable saying that they have to describe themselves as being black just because they're non-white.
Equally, non-white wouldn't be an acceptable term as far as I can see because it identifies a person in negative terms, as something they're not rather than in positive terms as something that they are.
I don't know what the answer is, but my gut reaction is that forcing people of colour who don't consider themselves as black, and who on no objective analysis are black, to be called black shouldn't be acceptable.
Usual caveats apply, given that I speak as a white privileged male who has benefitted personally from apartheid and the exploitation of black labour. I may be part of the problem, but I'm not sure that Habeeb's suggestion is part of the solution.