Racism? Question

I have a very strange question and I hope this is not offence and please let me know if it is. Just with all the pc, racism "issues" out there at the moment myself and hubby were discussing what do you actually call black people. I know most news agencies, people etc will say "African American" but not all people of this skin colour are from either African or American descent so in my mind this is totally wrong. Is it racist to call someone Black?

No as far as I'm aware 'Black' is the correct term to use & it's racist to say they're 'coloured'.

My DH is black. As it happens he is African but as most people on meeting him wouldn't know where he is from, they would be right in describing him as black. I think the issue with describing people as black comes from people referring to 'blacks', which is not acceptable.

'Black' is the right word and as MrsK said above 'coloured' is not. I understand where you are coming from -my parents would think using the word black is offensive and 'coloured' is more polite.

I would use "black" rather than any other term.

Black would be a correct description. Coloured wouldnt be. Im white, so why arent I called coloured by that logic?

I think J-Z and Kanye are the only people who get away with using the term 'nigga', much to Oprah's discharging.

Nostress, it's not that strange a question, it's something I've wondered about too. I've never been comfortable with "coloured" as like someone else said I'm white so I'm also coloured ,so were all coloured. It just sounds wrong. But I wasn't sure if black would be the correct term to use. Good to know should I ever need to use it, which I can't see happening any time soon.

When I was working in South Africa in 2003 I referred to a girl in work as black, and was told afterwards she was most definitely not black and that she was "coloured" or to be really pc, she was "of colour". I always think coloured is a very old fashioned and racist term to call black people, but the truth was, she was not black, she was mixed race and so was coloured. Without meaning to at all, I could have really offended her, all because I was trying to be pc! In SA you have the 3 main groups - white, black and coloured. Referring to a person "of colour" as black is a big no no.

We have a black family living 2 doors up from us. I would refer to them by their names so out kids wouldn't have heard us referring to them by the colour of their skin. There are 2 girls and 1 boy in the family, the younger of the girls sits beside my DD in school. One day my DD asked me what was the name of the older sister, I told her but she said " no mammy that's the name of the girl with the blacky brownie skin, I'm talking about the sister with the different coloured skin". After a minute I realised she was talking about the older girls best friend who is white. I just loved the innocent of the way she referred to them, just purely in a descriptive manner and how she didn't realise that a white girl and black girl couldn't be sisters. Wouldn't it be great if things stayed like that.