call the midwife

[gina32]

is it me or was the baby born to the white mother very black as opposed to being halfcast?

[Old_Geezer]

These terms begin as polite (well many of them anyway) until someone somewhere decides to be offended by them, and then it is suddenly the offensive term and another one needs to be found. I think eventually they'll run out of terms to use to describe folk. So have we reached the point when "mixed race" is a non-white expression and only they can use it ?

[Mosaic]

My DIL describes herself as a banana - 'white on the inside'. I'll let you take a stab at her ethnicity.

[douglas9401]

I like my bananas green Mosaic, is she a Martian?

[pastafreak]

I'm not sure I agree with the premise that if you are born in the '50's then 'coloured' is the term you use forever more. What happened to moving with the times?
I was born before the 50's,but have been using the term black for at least 40+ years.

[trt]

I didn't realise that the word ' half-cast ' was offensive till last week when my daughter told me!

In a few years we wont be able to say/describe any people who are not white!

[Quizmonkey]

No not offended personally, just stating what the norm is. Remember that 'half-caste' originates from the dubious caste system in India. I think most people used it without knowing what the 'caste' bit means.

And 'coloured' is surely so obviously just wrong, in anyone's book!

[douglas9401]

Some might say that black was as off the mark as coloured given that the majority of people who describe themselves as black are actually brown.
Just a thought.

[pastafreak]

I was just thinking the same douglas.

[Quizmonkey]

Black is political terminology, Douglas - not a chromatic descriptor!

[lankeela]

Black people I know prefer to be referred to as black, but as a child we always referred to mixed race people as half casts. I grew up in fifties/sixties North London where there were a lot of children of black and mixed race families. Personally I think its easy to stop if people are using a term in an offensive manner and I don't think referring to someone as half cast is offensive.

[lankeela]

'spot' not 'stop'!

[craft1948]

Halle Berry insists her daughter is black. Halle's mother is white, the father of her daughter is white so how come she says her daughter is black.

[pastafreak]

But it may be offensive to the person you're referring to.

[pastafreak]

Mine was to lankeela.

[Quizmonkey]

Lankeela, whether you think half-castE is or isn't offensive is immaterial, I'm afraid! And read my other posts.

[douglas9401]

Perhaps it's a political statement craft? It's all getting very confusing in this rainbow society. Nothing, it seems, is what it appears to be.

[Dodger666]

"3.5% a year overall dogger in todays terms. thats not a lot.
probably even less than that in the 50s".

3.5% is still a lot of babies in the London area where the programme is recorded. The same would apply to Salford if it's recorded there.

[flip_flop]

So Halle Berry's child is 1/4 black and 3/4 white - surely then, if Halle Berry is not using the term mixed-race, she should, more accurately, describe her child as white, not black?

Why on earth would she describe her child as something that it patently is not?