What he said I would forgive my Grandad or even my dad for saying, it wasn't malicious.

However the chairman of the FA should be doing much, much better. They should be making a point to use the correct, acceptable terminology of the time. This is especially true for black people and football.

Race issues primarily targeted at black players are a blight on English football and a hot topic right now. To get that wrong isnt forgivable in his position. It shows to me that any work being done with Kick it Out is nothing but lip service otherwise he would naturally know the correct terms.

b0r1s wrote:

Brooks wrote:

"Coloured" is an improvement on historic uh trends at least.

My dad is as dark as they come and he uses the word coloured. He’s old school and definitely not PC but he does not mean anything bad by it. He would actually think he’s being polite using that word as I guess it’s softer. Growing up in the 70’s black was usually appended by bastard in the rough area I was initially raised in. Im guessing the few people from the Caribbean, including my dad, felt coloured was a better description than he abuse he got on the street.

Yeah - I think coloured was at one time felt to be more polite than black. But then that opinion may have been formed in ignorance and without any consultation.

When it comes to racist chants or remarks during a football match - both teams should just march off. The message would soon get through. And crowds wouldn't be long in self policing.

Kow wrote:

I can understand that words come and go but is coloured actually considered offensive now, or just out of date?

I'm honestly not sure either, I heard a black (?!) person describe themself as coloured on TV last week or so but this was a guy in his 60s/70s so who knows. I think as a white guy I just have to listen to POC and use what's appropriate for current times.

I really did not know this.

I'm know trying to think if I use the phrase at all. Don't think I do...

Plus I think intent is clear, surely? If you're using 'coloured' in an honest way to be inoffensive, worst you should expect is to be corrected.

I mean, Scrubs covered this back in 2003, and that show was hardly unproblematic.

In this country at least, its usage was frowned upon since at least the 80's. You might just roll your eyes at your Granded talking about 'a coloured fellow', but the chairman of the FA really should know better.

Don't feel sorry for him, in his position he has no excuse for not getting it right.

Its not really about which one is correct for me.
It is purely that he got it wrong.

He is the chairman of a business in an industry facing serious racism issues. If in that situation you hire someone to do media training so you know you are getting it right.

Not doing so shows contempt.

Just Google Greg Clarke, look up the things he has said in just the 4 years he's been at the FA and tell me if you still feel sorry for him.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Just Google Greg Clarke, look up the things he has said in just the 4 years he's been at the FA and tell me if you still feel sorry for him.

Yeah I can believe the guy sucked already.

Diluted Dante wrote:

I mean, Scrubs covered this back in 2003, and that show was hardly unproblematic.

In this country at least, its usage was frowned upon since at least the 80's. You might just roll your eyes at your Granded talking about 'a coloured fellow', but the chairman of the FA really should know better.

This isn't really an argument two white guys should get into, but in the 80s coloured was fine, in my experience. Unless everyone I knew was racist, which may be the case, I dunno.

Aside: When I was well young, like 6 or so, my mum would leave us with our nana (grandma's mum), and I'd often whinge at her, ask her where mum was, to which after constant nagging from me she'd reply, "she's run off with a black man!" which I guess was meant to shock me and shut me up. These days, looking back, I just think, if she did, fair play mum, get yer fill.


(To the best of knowledge, mother did not run off with a black man).

Brazen hussy, smh.

In the US. Doesn’t seem all that adopted here

I've used coloured in the past, was told it wasn't good, stopped using it. But I've kinda gone zero tolerance the last couple of years. Bloke at work (unskilled warehouse job, white Midlands fella, late 50s) started getting pally with me recently, then described how some lad he was showing the ropes to got upset when he called him too slow. Admittedly 80% of the staff there are tossing it off most of the time, but anyway. He tells me that the other bloke was too foreign and didn't speak good enough English to understand that he wasn't being rude to him and shouldn't have been upset with him. Then says to me "anyway can't believe he gets to come to my country then have me told off", I flipped really slowly. Asked him to repeat the phrase, said "look at me, you think I want to hear that, half Indian half Italian", he starts immediately talking about his Indian mates and how some of his friends are black. I said "I don't care, I'm not even gonna call you a racist, just you said a racist thing you little turd" the flipping is now starting to happen as I'm lecturing him I realise I've got one hand round his neck and I'm dragging him to his supervisors so he can explain why I'm gripping him up. Really fucked up there, let go of him and he dropped, no one has seen it, but on the plus side he's not spoken to me since

Edit: tldr I'm very happy to call out even casual or consequential racism, fuck it, folk will either learn and grow, or continue being a twat