Colored: Encyclopedia - Colored

Colored

Colored and Colored People (or Colored Folk in the plural sense) are North American terms that were commonly used to describe people of African Ancestry. However, within the current and former members of British Commonwealth the term Coloured has also been applied to members and descendents of other races as well, including some Asians, Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and Arabs. The term "colored" in particular (along with "Negro") largely has fallen out of popular usage in the United States, diminishing in frequency in the last third of the 20th century. Despite the negative connotations it may have today, "colored" was once a term used virtually universally in the U.S., and it came to be used as part of the name of the NAACP—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The term "colored" appeared in North America during the colonial era. A "colored" man halted a runaway carriage that was carrying President John Tyler on March 4, 1844. In 1863, the War Department established the "Bureau of Colored Troops." The first twelve Census counts in the U.S. enumerated "colored" people, who totaled nine million in 1900. The Census counts of 1910-1960 enumerated "negroes."

"Colored" was originally a term for persons of mixed African and Caucasian and/or Native American ancestry. Coloreds and mixed Creoles generally were accorded higher status than blacks. Later, "colored" was used to refer to all persons of African ancestry, due to the difficulty involved in maintaining these distinctions.

Colored - People of Color

"Person of color" or "people of color" are synonyms for people who are not white and (especially in the United States and Canada) for members of a non-white minority group. Some find this term equally offensive as the term "colored", primarily because it fixes whites as the benchmark for racial division, fostering an allegedly "us-versus-them" view of race relations. Proponents of the term maintain that it must be realistically acknowledged that race domination is primarily caucasian, and that the term "person of color" is a better generic term for the racial underclass than "black person" as it includes ethnicities other than those strictly of African descent. This would include Latinos, Asians and many indigenous groups that also experience racism.

The historical term free people of color refers to people of African descent during slavery who lived in freedom. A related term from the time of slavery is gens de couleur, a French expression that refers to the free descendants of white French colonists and Africans. Because so many of these people had mixed African and European ancestry, they are sometimes labeled mulatto. They are also sometimes referred to as affranchis.

Colored - Coloured

The British English spelling coloured can mean the same in the United Kingdom (today usually used only by older people and often considered offensive). Primarily in South Africa, it also can have a related, but different, meaning–of a mixed-race person.

See also

• African American
• Blacks
• Coloured
• Creole
• Mulatto
• Negro
• Race
• Racial segregation

Category: Multiracial affairs

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Colored", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki