Inclusive content: ethnicity, religion and nationality

[sarawilcox]

From February 2022, please use this issue to discuss the inclusive content page about ethnicity, religion and nationality in the service manual.

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The content below dates back to December 2020.

What

Our guidance on language around ethnicity and race is limited and doesn't address issues like the use of "BAME". It would help content designers if we can research and agree what language to use.

Why

We've seeing evidence that, for a number of reasons, people do not like the term BAME. It's an acronym, for example, and not always understood. As the GOV.UK guidance on ethnicity says it includes some groups and not others – for example, the UK’s ethnic minorities include White minorities and people with a Mixed ethnic background.

Background reading

• The GOV.UK guidance on ethnicity says not to use BAME. Instead it talks about "ethnicity" and "ethnic groups".

• As a black woman, I hate the term 'people of colour' - in the Independent

• Black, BAME or People of Colour: what’s in a name?

• 'BAME' term offends those it attempts to describe, sporting survey finds

• BEYOND ‘BAME’: What does the public think?

• Why we don’t use ‘BAME’ in our content

• Please, don't call me BAME or BME!

Related issues

• Ask users for ethnic groups #237

[cameronross2]

The guide to terminology following the #BAMEOver survey can be found in this PDF.

#BAMEOver A Statement for the UKb50fe845250128cc04816c1a71da55f9a0003851a3d72e9565fac79fb8ef6f72.pdf

[sarawilcox]

Some comments on NHS.UK Slack:

• "It's just best to say specifically who we are talking about".
• "I think it depends on context. I had this discussion with colleagues a little while back when thinking about how to phrase something similar in a survey and we ended up going with 'people who experience racism' as in that context we were basically interested in hearing from people who did not have white privilege... the reason we're writing about it/asking about particular people's experience will differ each time. Maybe there isn't a catch all term and maybe the terminology we use will be different in each context"

[sarawilcox]

There's also the term "Afro-Caribbean". @chloephilippou, would you mind noting here please why you recommend: "African Caribbean"?

[Chloephilippou]

Hi @sarawilcox We wouldn’t write ‘Afro-Caribbean’ today, but is ‘people of colour’ OK now? 'Over time the term “Afro-Caribbean” was deemed outdated because of the word “Afro” being connected to a hairstyle rather than a continent. Rightly – as recognised in the Guardian’s style guide – it was replaced with African-Caribbean.'

The British Heart Foundation are quite clear in what they say too.

[sarawilcox]

Boris Johnson's racial disparities commission is reportedly poised to recommend that the term BAME should no longer be used by public bodies and companies. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-racial-commission-scrap-bame-term-b926762.html

The newspaper article suggests that the term "ethnic minority" is more popular with people from ethnic minorities than BAME or "people of colour".

[sarawilcox]

At the July Style Council meeting

We agreed to add the following to our inclusive language page. It's based on, and links to, GOV.UK guidance.

Use "ethnicity", not "race".

Use "ethnic minorities", not "BAME" or "BME".

Follow the guidance on writing about ethnicity from the Race Disparity Unit on GOV.UK. Be as specific as you can.

This has now been approved by our clinicians. Getting ready to publish.

[sarawilcox]

Page needs review:

• see the separate issue about black/Black
• user feedback on this page

[sarawilcox]

We're getting some feedback about the way we talk about ethnicity. For example, a user who mentioned that "Asian women" makes her feel uncomfortable in a way that "women of Asian ethnicity" doesn't.

The GOV.UK guidance on writing about ethnicity says:

If there is a risk of users mistaking ethnicities for nationalities, we avoid ambiguity by writing:

‘people from the Indian ethnic group’, not ‘Indian people’ ‘pupils from the Chinese ethnic group’, not ‘Chinese pupils’

It says "In research, ‘people from a black Caribbean background’, ‘the black ethnic group’ and ‘black people’ were all acceptable phrases".

In a health context, and recognising that some users will be of mixed ethnic background, including the term "background" or "heritage" may be helpful.