• 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.

  • 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.

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