45
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
45 points (81.7% liked)
No Stupid Questions
49473 readers
509 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I'd use
Black instead of African American
Native instead of Indian
Indian for someone from the country of India
[Nothing] for someone with a mental disability unless it was required in the context of the conversation. And then I'd hopefully know what the specific condition is (ie downs syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome)
Not an exhaustive list. But a start.
Native is fine in North America, but offensive in South America. Better to use Indigenous
I met a guy with Indian parents, but he was born and lived in the USA. I asked if that meant he was an American Indian. Nobody would answer me.
I've heard a way to disambiguate "Indian" is to ask "dot or feather?" which is, alas, at least mildly racist. But I remember reading about it a few years ago because someone of - wait for it¹ - native and Indian heritage who worked at a casino on a reservation as tech support - was asked this question and got to answer "BOTH!" (and we were all amused at their job and its location) lol
It sounds made up, and who knows, but at the time I remember the discussion seemed to support that they weren't lying. :shrug:
¹ but I won't make you wait long. In fact, if you had skipped this footnote, you'd already know!
in swedish it's "indian" for native north american, and "indier" for someone from india.
I feel like one could come up with a similar distinction in english but the best i can come up with is "indie" which is unfortunately already taken and slightly sounds like a slur when used for an ethnic group.
In Canada they use "First Nations", which I really like, so I use that a lot of the time (of the rare times the subject arises). :)
He's an Indian American. An American Indian would be an Indian of American descent.
I think its better to just bypass all of that unless you actually know where they are from and just say, dark skinned fellow. Light skinned woman. There is nothing wrong with using a descriptor.
Given the history of racism and colorism in the US, reducing a person of color to just their skin color can sometimes cause upset. Using a non-skin-tone related descriptor is generally safer, if possible.
Sure I get that. I'm thinking just in a situation where I am describing a stranger. Like "hey front desk person, a dark skinned man with a blue hat dropped his keys but I didnt see what room he went in. I have to leave so I'm leaving them with you"
I'm probably being overly semantic but perhaps saying "A person with a blue hat and dark skin" would be the least abrasive way of putting it? That said, obsessing over endless semantic refinement and searching for a flawless alternative that does not exist for fear of hypothetical offense will lead to recursive over-correction ad nauseam
The best way of saying it would probably be a black person with a blue hat, which is probably also what most would say. Never heard someone think that black is offensive, unless you are saying a black, which is definitely not acceptable.
I see that
dark skinned MAN, you MISANDRIST!
(I kid, I kid)