(July 7, 2014 at 8:55 pm)GalacticBusDriver Wrote: When "the black woman sitting at the front desk" becomes the same type of descriptive language that "the brunette woman sitting at the front desk" is today, and carries the same emotional temperature gradient, it will be a great day for humanity.
Outside of 'professional' environments I'd say it actually is used like that. Or at least I've heard this kind of descriptive language plenty of times with no negative intentions or connotations.
For instance, if I was at a party and I'm reliving the events the next morning with a friend, I might say "do you remember that guy last night, he was hilarious", but my friend might not know who I mean. I'd respond "the tall black guy, I didn't get his name". If pretty much everyone else at the party wasn't black, I'd be stupid to try and use another descriptor. If it was a guy with ginger hair I'd do the same. Or if he was Asian. Or excessively fat. Or excessively small. Skin colour, or hair colour, or weight, or height... they're all just descriptors. I wouldn't say I want to live in a world where everyone ignores obvious differences. Sounds like an even more ignorant world than what we live in now.
