Describing someone as ‘coloured’ is not racist, even if it does offend people of colour, an employment judge has ruled. The Mail has the story.
A tribunal concluded that although the term is “generally considered to be old fashioned” and potentially “offensive”, it is not racist when used to simply “describe” someone from an ethnic minority background as a “one-off comment”.
The ruling came in the case of mixed-heritage admin worker Amy Reeves, who heard a colleague describe two people as “coloured” while working in the office.
When nothing was done about the remarks, she claimed she was the victim of discrimination and racial harassment, but an employment tribunal ruled that the colleague did “not intend” for the term to be “offensive”.
It found that Reeves had not been the victim of any kind of harassment and that it was not “reasonable” for her to be “upset” by the use of the word, despite conceding that it could be “offensive”.
Reeves, who is of British and Jamaican heritage, was employed by construction and housing company Kier Ltd in Sheffield, Yorkshire, as a commercial administrator from November 2024.
She said that on her very first day on the job a colleague described one of the company’s tenants as a “little old black lady”.
The next day, Reeves messaged someone – though that person was not identified – saying: “There were some discriminatory comments in the office yesterday that bothered me and I’m not really sure how to approach it, I’m not upset as I think people just need to be educated better (it’s a 100% white British office).”
In March 2025, Reeves said that a project manager for the company, Wayne Pashley, had referred to “two coloured ladies outside” when describing two women who were stood outside the office.
She said Pashley was “visibly startled” when he saw that she could hear him and added that “she found this language offensive and upsetting”.
The term ‘coloured’ was historically used to describe people of African descent during periods of racial segregation in America and is now regarded as a controversial and often racist term.
In 2015 actor Benedict Cumberbatch faced a backlash for his use of the word and some commentators have even called for its use to be criminalised.
The term being used in the office led Reeves to report it to her manager, saying that “racial discrimination” was “something she was struggling with” at work.
She said: “Site staff have said ‘two coloured ladies’, ‘old black ladies’ and quite frequently laughed at non-English last names.
“It’s making me really uncomfortable and out of place, I’m wondering if you could address these issues? Let me know your thoughts.”
The manager offered to say something a few days later, saying he had missed her message, but Reeves told him not to because by then she had “settled some tension in the office” and did not “want to start it back up again”.
She did however tell him that she personally preferred people not use the term “black”, even if it was simply used in a descriptive way, though she did say that many people of colour do not mind.
After this exchange, Reeves continued to experience what she said was “discriminatory behaviour, microaggressions and a pattern of exclusion” and ultimately filed a grievance within the company in May 2025.
She said she wanted to work “100% remotely” while it was dealt with and went off sick from stress in the same month.
She remained off sick until July when she resigned from the company with immediate effect, citing Kier’s “failure to protect her from discrimination”.
The grievance was investigated in Reeves’s absence but her concerns were not upheld when it concluded in October 2025 – by which time she had already filed her claims with an employment tribunal in Sheffield.
However her complaints of harassment related to race, victimisation and direct race discrimination were each dismissed by Employment Judge Kirsty Ayre, despite admitting the term “coloured” was a “racially slanted adverse comment”.
Worth reading in full.
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“If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say,
‘I’m still waiting to hear what your point is.‘
In this country, I’ve been told, ‘That’s offensive’ as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me they don’t.
And I’m not running for anything, so I don’t have to pretend to like people when I don’t.”
― Christopher Hitchens
Interestingly, in the USA, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is still in existence. I know that this is not the USA, but it was founded in 1909, and they apparently see no need to change its title. It is almost impossible to keep up with what is considered to be “ acceptable “ terminology nowadays, particularly when there appear to be so many people whose mission seems to be to find offence where none is intended. Of course, playing the race card is clearly a nice little earner for some people.
Whatever objection could anyone have to “a little old black lady”. Try campaigning for Reform and see what you get called and by people who have never met you or spoken to you.
referring to an elderly, short female with dark skin as a lady is not offensive. It is the correct form.
Coloured… lightly coloured? Darkly coloured? Badly coloured? Pleasantly coloured? Subtly coloured?
Coloured people and people of colour and the same thing FFS. The people that complain are looking everywhere for something to be offended about.
Black isn’t a co.our, it’s a monochrome.
And White people are actually pink, so the real coloured or people of colour.
So she doesn’t like people being described as black and she doesn’t like people being described as coloured.
How does she like them being described? How about “a darker shade of pale?”
Sounds to me like she spotted an opportunity to claim a lot of money in compensation for her hurty feelings …… but the judge failed to play ball.
Maybe “off white” or, after the Dulux adds from the 1980’s “white, not quite”.
I do remember the difficulty in explaining to my young child that a brown person should be called black and that a pink person should be called white. He could see that that didn’t make sense….
Just like the Benedict Cumberbatch idiocy. “People of colour find the term coloured people offensive”. I am sure most people are thinking the same as me – total bemusement. I think it is typical leftist word play to find any reason for “offensive”. I remember watching Question Time a few years ago when a black woman in the audience corrected someone on the panel that the correct thing to say is African Carribbean and not Afro Carribbean.
Wherever this girl works in the future, I’m sure she will bring joy to every workplace
I’m none the wiser what term could have been used that wouldn’t offend her
Honky?
100% playing the race card!
“little old black lady” outside. Conjures up
an image of a kindly grandma that most people would be well disposed to rather than some racist slight. Offence is so easily taken by some now!
It’s like this; we have to call them by their root heritage, we have to say that they are Nigerian or Tamil or Somalian. But only when they aren’t saying that they’re British.
But to them, we are simply white. We aren’t Welsh or German or Russian.
And that is the core issue with it all.
Obviously we can’t abbreviate the names of certain countries. Presumably it’s still OK to say Somali or Afghan so why not niger, short for Nigeria, or paki, short for Pakistan?
Paki was used by Pakistanis to refer to themselves in the 60s, it only became a pejorative after the first Race Relations Act in 1965 or so. Because the same people could see an advantage to it.
Meant to reply not to downtick – sorry. Wanted to say that P stands for Punjab, A for Afghanistan, K for Kashmir and S for Sind hence is an acronym originating in pre-independent India for grouping muslim states.
A former colleague told us that when a cricket team from Pakistan was due to tour Australia for club matches they would get excited and chant ‘the Pakis are coming!’. Meaning that there was going to be some good challenging cricket.
Of course Aussies are notorious for abbreviating everything… Oh dear, I hope that doesn’t get me in trouble.
And of course we get to pay for the privilege, with our cash and by giving up our cities, our heritage and our culture.
But we can’t do that. They are not Nigerian but British in most cases. And how could we know where their families came from if the Home Office says they can’t (more likely won’t – An eatery.Com could solve it)
Does it really matter which particular African shot hole they come from?
What’s appalling about this is that the marxo-fascist madleft has succeeded in introducing thought-crimes and heresies into our society and into the legal process. This is catastrophically bad for our country and our people.
We have to return to free-speech.
Not until people accept that being offended by someone else’s words is an acceptable part of life.
I lived in South Africa for around thirty years, and ALL South Africans recognise people of mixed race as “coloured”.
It’s not racist, it’s not pejorative, it’s simply a term describing their origins, the same as calling someone white or black.
I don’ think a judge can rule on anything whatsoever on “racism”.
Racism is a comoletely vague term that is (deliberately) given different meanings by different people.
These days it is mostly a weapon used by socialosts and cultural revolutionaries to intimidate and take down their opponents.
Without a commonly accepted definition of racism, how can a judge possibly make a ruling?
There is a common definition for racism, which is: racism is defined as whatever it needs to be. This judge is a memo or two behind it seems.
In South Africa – when I was there in the 70s/80s – “coloured” was the term used by Black Africans for mixed race or Asians whom they considered inferior. Calling a Black African “coloured” was an insult therefore as they were quite superior to “coloureds”.
Funny old World.
And of course apartheid came out of the existence and growth of a group of people who had a white and a black parent, this group was shunned by both white and black society. Apartheid was designed to make the birth of more such people more difficult but of course failed due to the nature of humans.
The Dutch South Africans were incredibly hard nosed and intolerant, which is why apartheid lasted as long as it did.
The Dutch South Africans who built South Africa into a great nation had every right to be “hard-nosed and intolerant” about protecting their own tribe of people, just like any other tribe anywhere in the world. Just look at what happened to South Africa after apartheid was abolished, and White Farmers were tortured and slaughtered just for being White.
A judge can decide what it isn’t.
Yes, and how does the judge have any right to make a ruling about THE WAY PEOPLE THINK? The state cannot legislate THOUGHT.
When did a racist attitude become ILLEGAL, and WHO DECIDED THAT?