Colored

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the term used mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. For the term used for an ethnic group in Southern Africa, see Coloureds. For the DC Talk song, see Colored People (song). For other uses, see Color (disambiguation).

Detail of a historical photograph showing historical use of the term in the US in contrast with "white"

Colored (or coloured) is a racial descriptor historically used in the

Jim Crow Era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur,[1] though it has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed or Cape Coloured heritage.[2]

Dictionary definitions

The word colored (Middle English icoloured) was first used in the 14th century but with a meaning other than race or ethnicity.[3][4] The earliest uses of the term to denote a member of dark-skinned groups of peoples occurred in the second part of the 18th century in reference to South America. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "colored" was first used in this context in 1758 to translate the Spanish term mujeres de color ('colored women', literally 'women of color') in Antonio de Ulloa's A voyage to South America.[4]

The term came in use in the United States during the early 19th century, and it then was adopted by emancipated slaves as a term of racial pride after the end of the

Jim Crow era to designate items or places restricted to African Americans, the word colored is now usually considered to be offensive.[4]

The term has historically had multiple connotations. In British usage, the term refers to "a person who is wholly or partly of non-white descent," and its use is generally regarded as antiquated or offensive.[5][6] Other terms are preferable, particularly when referring to a single ethnicity.

United States

Dilapidated hotel sign, Route 80, Statesboro, Georgia. The picture was taken in 1979, after the end of segregation.

In the United States, colored was the predominant and preferred term for African Americans in the mid- to late nineteenth century in part because it was accepted by both white and black Americans as more inclusive, covering those of mixed-race ancestry (and, less commonly,

pan-Africanists (Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and political progressives. "Negro" was still favored as self-descriptive racial term over "black" by a plurality in the late 1960s; however, by the late 1970s and early 1980s, "black" was strongly favored.[7]

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. about growing up in segregated West Virginia in the 1960s. "Welcome to the Colored Zone, a large stretched banner could have said .... Of course, the colored world was not so much a neighborhood as a condition of existence."[11] "For most of my childhood, we couldn't eat in restaurants or sleep in hotels, we couldn't use certain bathrooms or try on clothes in stores", recalls Gates. His mother retaliated by not buying clothes that she was not allowed to try on. He remembered hearing a white man deliberately calling his father by the wrong name: "'He knows my name, boy,' my father said after a long pause. 'He calls all colored people George.'" When Gates's cousin became the first black cheerleader at the local high school, she was not allowed to sit with the team and drink Coke from a glass, but had to stand at the counter drinking from a paper cup.[11] Gates also wrote about his experiences in his 1995 book, Colored People: A Memoir.[12]

Census terms in the United States

In 1851, an article in The New York Times referred to the "colored population".[13][full citation needed] In 1863, the War Department established the Bureau of Colored Troops.

The first 12

United States Census
counts counted "colored" people, who totaled nine million in 1900. The censuses of 1910–1960 counted "negroes".

Term in NAACP

The term is still used in the name of the

United Negro College Fund
switched to using just UNCF or United Fund.

Southern Africa

Main article: Coloureds

In

Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians.[16]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Colored (text).


References

  1. ^ Butterly, Amelia (27 January 2015). "Warning: Why using the term 'coloured' is offensive". BBC Newsbeat. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  2. ^ Statistical Abstract of the United States. US Department of the Treasury. 1934. p. 554 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ "Colored | Definition of Colored by Merriam-Webster". Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  4. ^ a b c "coloured | colored, adj. and n." Oxford English Dictionary.
  5. ^ a b "Is the word 'coloured' offensive?". BBC News Magazine. 9 November 2006. Retrieved 18 August 2012. In times when commentators say the term is widely perceived as offensive, a Labour MP lost no time in condemning it "patronising and derogatory"
  6. ^ "Definition of coloured in English". OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 23 July 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2012. In Britain it was the accepted term until the 1960s, when it was superseded (as in the US) by black. The term coloured lost favour among black people during this period and is now widely regarded as offensive except in historical contexts
  7. ^
    JSTOR 2749204
    .
  8. ^ Trigger, Bruce G. (1978). Northeast. Smithsonian Institution. p. 290. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
  9. National Public Radio
    . Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  10. ^ "Afro-American". Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 6 February 2019. Definition of Afro-American: African American. First known use of Afro-American 1831, in the meaning defined above
  11. ^
    Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (Summer 2012). "Growing Up Colored"
    . American Heritage Magazine. Vol. 62, no. 2.
  12. ISBN 067973919X
    .
  13. ^ "[title missing]". The New York Times. 18 September 1851. p. 3.
  14. ^ "Lohan calls Obama 'colored', NAACP says no big deal". San Jose Mercury News. 12 November 2008.
  15. ^ "coloured". OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 9 March 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  16. ISSN 0258-7696. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 8 November 2006.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colored&oldid=1218083857"