Police in the UK have been told not to use racist terms like ‘black sheep’ and ‘blacklisted’ because they may cause offence.
Police in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire Bedfordshire have created a diversity, equality and inclusion reference guide for their officers and staff.
Festus Akinbusoye, who is the UK’s first black Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and former PCC for Bedfordshire Constabulary, called the guidance ‘utterly mad’.
He questioned why the term ‘whitewashing’ had not singled been out for criticism but the terms ‘blacklisted’, ‘black sheep’ and ‘black mark’ were.
The Mail Online reports: The nine-page document, which was published online last year and reported last night by The Telegraph – also stated that ‘black mark’ was no longer deemed acceptable as part of expressions that use ‘black in a negative way’.
Alongside these words, the guide called on officers to use gender neutral language such as ‘pregnant person’ rather than pregnant women while it advised against using ‘Christian-centric’ language such as ‘faith’.
And the ‘reference resource for staff and officers’ handout said gender is a ‘social construct relating to behaviours and attributes’.
‘There is a wider range of gender identities than just male and female,’ it added.
The guide covers concepts such as racial microagressions and white fragility – which is defined as ‘a state in which some white people are unable to cope with or process the information they receive about racism’.