Is It Racist To Refer To Someone As Black Or White Or Brown Skinned When Giving A Description?

It is not really racist to say black, white or brown skinned in a description but it still shouldn't matter. When giving a description to someone like the police obviously the colour of a person is going to matter as it helps them to identify the person. It is not a racist comment it is simply a true description. People are different colours and whilst it does not matter what colour you are, in a description it often does. If the description is for a book then there are only really certain circumstances when you need to refer to people as different coloured but generally it should not really matter.

Overall I would say that it is not racist to put colours into descriptions but there will be some who do. Everybody is different and there will always be some form of racism around and some people may use descriptions to vent their racism. As long as the description is not racist in any way then that is OK.

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If you're worried about using those words, why not instead use words like dark, tanned or pale, which are perfectly good equivalents of the words, with no racial connotations. Personally I would not consider using black or white as descriptions to be racist, but it would be racist to draw attention to skin colour in the context of things like social, economic or behavioural differences in people.

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I wouldn't regard it as racist to refer to the colour of people's skin; it's descriptive but not racist.
I think we've become so sensitive about being branded racist that we tend to over-react and some people do take it all too far.
I know of some areas in London where you can't order a black or white tea or coffee and I think this is so extreme.
As regard to the collections you mention perhaps times weren't so enlightened if the collections actually said for black and white babies but I don't think it was meant to be racist.
Now we'd probably just say for children in local orphanages or for children, in say, for example Africa. I don't think it's a question of racism.
Obviously people do use colour as a vehicle for racism but I think for most of use it's just a descriptive thing. My friend who is African refers to herself as black and uses the terms black and white freely without any hint of racism.

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Well basically, it depends on how you say it and how you describe it and what tone you say it in. So in some instances it could be viewed as racist, but not in others.

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