Black girl???

Question

Normally I call European girl "white girl"? Is it the wrong expression?
I classify them as White girl, Black girl and Asian girl"
When a black girl hear these words "Black girl", will she get angry?
What do I call them? Thank you in advance for your teaching.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Son JamesNormally I call European girl "white girl"?

Not a good idea. Why would you need to do this?

Son JamesWhen a black girl hear these words "Black girl", will she get angry?

Probably.

Son JamesWhat do I call them?

I call them Mary, Luisa, Chidera, Helga....

Son James · Answer

Ah! When I talked with English person for something today, I said that I met a black girl while I was under military duty.
He laughed a lot. So I doubt whether or not I chose improper words at that time. So I want to know what I call them by race. Since I'm an Asian, Asian girl don't like to hear words with yellow. European girl, African American girl, Asian girl?

BarbaraPA · Answer

Americans are hyper-sensitive abour race. I am myself. Why would you need to specifiy what color her skin was? Would have you said "I met a girl with blue eyes" or "I met a girl with broad shoulder" or "I met a girl with brown hair"?

If her being from another country or culture was what was interesting, then say that. I met a girl from Zimbabwe. I met a girl from Peru. I met a person from Belize for the first time.

Refer to them as people and igore their race, unless you need to identify which girl you mean and it's the most obvious discriminator.

As you look at a group of four girls: "Which one is your friend Mary?"
She's the Asian one (if the others are not Asian).
She's the one with the bright red hair (if none of the others have red hair).
She's the one with the pixie cut (if none of the others have short hair).
She's the one wearing the green shirt (if they are all of roughly similar appearance).

Son James · Answer

I see. I've learned a good thing that I shouldn't identify the girl with race or color of her skin. I couldn't know that it could be the most discriminator. Thank you so much for your teaching,BarbaraPA<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/10.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/10.gif' alt='Emotion: embarrassed'/>

Fivejedjon · Answer

Quite aside from there almost never being a need to label people by the colour of their skin, any more than by the texture of their hair or the religious beliefs of their parents, the choice of words for skin colour is so strange. Very few 'white ' people are white, just as very few 'black' people are black. No healthy 'yellow' person is 'yellow', nor 'red' person 'red'. I have met quite a few 'yellow', 'brown' and 'red' people whose skin colour is lighter than my 'white' skin.

Such labelling has political and cultural significance when people from one cultural group are trying to justify their conquest/enslavement/annihilation/exploitation of other peoples on the grounds of racial superiority (sometime ***-given). Even then, practical considerations often make the whole thing even more ridiculous. Christian art almost always portrays the Semitic Jesus as respectably western European. Millions of ***** who believed in Hitler's idea of the superiority of the tall, blond, blue-eyed Aryans managed to overlook the fact that their adored Fuhrer scored only one out of three; the South African government that enforced apartheid at home recognised the value of according 'honorary white' status to their valued trading partners, the Japanese.

Son James · Answer

Today I made a big mistake. I will not use such words. Thank you for your words, Fivejedjon.

Anonymous · Answer

you don't need to call black and white because the true expression is light skin for white and we call dark  skin to black.. . due to truely no  one that have black and white skin ..... yeah, may be brown.

Fivejedjon · Answer

Anonymous you don't need to call black and white because the true expression is light skin for white and we call dark skin to black.. . due to truely no one that have black and white skin ..... yeah, may be brown.

As some of use have tried to explain, there is generally no need to refer to the colour of a person's skin at all, whatever labels you use.

CalifJim · Answer

Son JamesWhen I talked with English person for something today, I said that I met a black girl while I was under military duty.He laughed a lot.

You might want to ask him why he laughed rather than ask others to speculate. People laugh for a lot of different reasons. It's even possible that he laughed at the expression "under military duty" because in English we usually say "while I was doing military duty" or "while I was in the military".

As for your other question, there's no point in saying to a man, "Oh, I see that you're a man" or to a woman, "Oh, I see that you're a woman". But you can certainly refer to them that way when speaking to others, for example, "I met a man" or "I met a woman". Similarly, there is no situation I can think of where you would say to a white girl, "Oh I see that you're a white girl", or to use the expression "white girl" at all in referring to her in your conversation with her, but I see nothing extraordinary about "I met a white girl" if that was a novel experience for you. At that point, comments on her height or hair color would seem irrelevant to what you are trying to say. "I met a tall girl with brown hair" would just not get your message across. The same idea applies to 'black girl' and 'Asian girl', in my opinion.

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

CalifJimI see nothing extraordinary about "I met a white girl" if that was a novel experience for you.

I agree.

Black girl???

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