Well, I was talking specifically about 1960s and 1970s England Soulster. There were plenty of derogatory terms around used by the ignorant when talking about "non-white" people but "coloured" was considered to be polite.
Nowadays the preferred terms are "Black" to describe Africans or people of African origin who have links with The Caribbean, or "Asian" to describe people who have South Asian origin. Those two groupings would account for the overwhelming majority of "Non-White" residents here.
The term "Coloured" has generally gone out of common useage as the way of describing "Non-White" people in Britain, but if I hear someone older than me use it then I am not too surprised and I would not consider them to be using it to be derogatory.
Interesting that you state that the term "Colored" in The U.S. always meant "those with African ancestry" as in The U.K. it did include other groups.
Well then, can I assume that if Mr Cumberbatch had revealed in that interview a taste for dressing up in womens' clothes and a secret attraction to one of the cameramen then his usage of the term "coloured" would have gone unnoticed!!
Roger
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