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What is meant by Black and Asian?
People shy away from defining what they mean, for fear of giving offence. Don’t be fearful and don’t assume - ask Black and Asian people how they define themselves. Mostly they won’t mind and mostly they will tell you.
Make sure you are up to speed with the debate – don’t call African Americans Afro-American, for instance, or African-Caribbeans Afro-Caribbean - an Afro is a haircut. We should all be clear about what we mean, and be sure that we use language that is acceptable to the groups of people we are talking about.
Black is a commonly accepted term which we can all use easily. African Americans, Black British people, Caribbean people, Africans - these are all Black people. In the 1970s Black was used as a political term to encompass many groups who shared a common experience of oppression - this could include Asian but also Irish, for example. In the 21st century most Asian people prefer to assert their separate identity as people from the continent of Asia. Asian people straddle many cultures and there are Asian communities in all parts of the world. Many Asians may choose to identify by nation or religion - Indian, Bangladeshi, Sikh - rather than with the whole continent. British Asian is becoming the common term for British people of Asian heritage.
Keep listening to what people call themselves.
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