In fashion terms, "nude" is the term more often used for the shade that Crayola calls (inaccurately, of course) "peach." The racial implication seems about the same - a dark-skinned woman dressed in pale beige wouldn't look naked.

Either way, though, most columnists would identify Mrs Obama's dress in this photo as "champagne." Either the lighting is way off, or Samantha Critchell is quite literally color blind. I think if your flesh is anywhere near that color you're probably northeast Asian and quite possibly need to visit a doctor.

Man, what the heck. Can people really be THAT oblivious? I mean-- when you were writing that, Samantha, didn't you do a double take? Like saying something like "Samantha is a terrible newspaperman-- or what, newspaper-PERSON."

What a clever example.

Samantha Critchell should have thought about this before writing this, seriously.

Ditto Andrew, the colour is pale gold or champagne. And not found in human flesh-tones, as many as there are

Given the deplorable state of education today, Critchell may not realize that "flesh" is another word for "skin."

*shakes my head*

Y'know what's stunning? Michelle Obama in that dress. ROWWRR!!!

In this day and age? Fucking ridiculous.

HAHAH!! It's a beautiful dress, but it's hella-gold. Or it's champagne.

People are truly and utterly oblivious...

That's a beautiful dress but if your skin is that colour, you may have a liver problem.

The chick that wrote that is an idiot and should be fired from whatever job she has immediately for being stupid. That dress is golden toned, not hardly "flesh" colored. Wow.

What color is that, really? If I saw a human with that skin tone, I'd be ready to rally the troops against the Martian invasion. So I wouldn't call it flesh, unless it was a sci-fi story.

Lizardish? Lovecraftian Green? I'm at a loss.

I reposted this on my facebook page and was confronted with the following:

DS
perhaps although a similar argument could be made to rename "navy blue" if the navy changed their dress code. Words take on meanings independent of their origins and its probably not wise or necessary to try to rectify this.
51 minutes ago · Delete

TC
...

for serious?

TC
right yeah I suppose so. In fact it's a lot like the thing where Jimmy Hill said it's fine to call black people niggers, in fact it was just like calling him chinny.

O no wait, it's different because for 500 years your skin tone determined your rank and status in society. If you had 'skin colour' skin, you were a 'normal' or a 'human', whereas if you had 'multicultural' (as it is described by some lovely crayola crayons) skin, you were a 'nigger' or a 'negro', a sub-human toy which people with 'skin coloured' skin could enslave, beat, rape and generally treat with the sort of disdain and contempt not even usually employed towards inanimate objects without a *black* mark on their conscience. Whereas people with big chins... just have big chins, and people in the navy are there by choice.

Other than that I guess they're exactly the same

DS
I think you missed the point "flesh coloured" is a term like "navy blue" it is no longer associated with its origins, your, loaded, examples however still are. It would be impractical and imprudent to attempt to annex every term with an etymological origin you disapprove of.

TC
Except it clearly is very much associated with that origin, in that it says 'this is normal, anything else is not normal'. My 'loaded example' was the case in question. I don't really see why your trying to defend this, or why we need to keep a term like 'flesh coloured' when it IS offensive and it absolutely reeks of what is still a hierarchical structure ingrained into the subtlest features of our culture, demonstrated by such as examples as this.

DS
I have never thought of the term as being associated with "actual" flesh until you pointed it out, nor do I think of the term "navy blue" as being associated with navy or midnight blue with the colour of midnight.

JP
Personally, I'm offended by the use of the word 'bus'. It brings to mind all these offensive connotations to do with having an arse the size of a bus. It's indefensible, and we need to stop this subtle form of discrimination.

DS
you forget that white people no matter what the state of their posteriors are by definition immune to all bigotry.

TC
Well the whole point of blogs like this is to point out all the little things that you wouldn't necessarily think about that actually really offend some people and perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice.

JP, I'm not even going to rise to that shit. I don't need to point out the flaw in your argument. You're a sufficiently competent philosopher to know it and I know you're just being an arse for it's own sake

DS
I'm not could you point it out, seems perfectly reasonable to me.

TC
Of course white people aren't immune to bigotry. Stop doing the 'poor white me, i'm so excluded' thing. It's absurd.

White people suffer a whole lot less by racism in countries where people, particularly people in positions of power and influence, are white, but we still get a bit. For example, once I was in an argument with a guy at a bar about some money and he accused me of being racist and said that the reason I didn't believe him was because he was black. He assumed I was being racist towards him because I was white, which is racist. Look at some stats, though, and you'll see how much easier white peoples lives are in countries like the USA and the UK.

DS
fine, but seriously could you point out the flaw in Jamie's point?

TC
JP's? It's because 'arse as fat as a bus' is a simile.

DS
how about if it was formulated as a metaphor say: 'that arse is a bus'?

TC
it still isn't a genuine analogy. If my point were that the word 'coal' is offensive, because people say 'he's as black as coal', then it would be a valid argument

DS
perhaps we should rename it to "a particular tiny subset of Caucasian peoples flesh colour"? because that wouldn't at all perpetuate racial divisions

TC
yeah that would be fine. Or we could just say 'peach' or 'beige' or invent a whole new word like 'vanure' or whatever. Just something that didn't say 'this is what colour NORMAL skin is'

DS
I think I wish to revert to my original point that when you say something like "that dress is flesh coloured", I conjure in to my mind something which is *that* colour not some etymology of the word or even that the word has anything to do with actual flesh. And with that I'm going to bed.

p.s. Blogs are actually, largely, there to give voices to people who didn't have voices in the first place because everything they say is retarded.oh noes was your retarded nieces, cousins, sisters, dog handler offended? I don't care!

TC
Ok. If you want to say that the only thing that matters is what you think an fuck everyone else then that's up to you. To be honest, I think on this occasion you're being an asshole for no good reason.

TC
"It's political correctness gone mad!"

No, it's being considerate.

Let's not harangue the journo too much here. It's really careless but it's clearly not malicious, and the above conversation demonstrates the ignorance and apathy surrounding the subtle issues of stereotyping that I was very much prone to myself before I started reading stuff like this blog.

But OMG this is such an absurd example it's hilarious!

We could have avoided all of this if she had worn a more colorful sari. But then the reporter would have replaced flesh-colored with "traditional", as though gowns and tuxedoes aren't. White western privilege, ya got me.

What's even more scary is that this got by her editors and publisher, who also thought nothing of this. That's almost a handful of people right there.

antique ivory?
champagne?

For my entire life, I've wanted to hear someone who was not me take people to task over the unfathomably racist term "flesh colored."

I've always called the color "white people color," the awkwardness of my corrective term, hopefully jarring enough to shake people up and realize how derogatory the former and accepted term is. As mentioned above, the implication is that "flesh colored" people are PEOPLE and anyone else falls under the general category of "QUALIFIED" people.

Ugh.

1) Yeah, that dress is clearly a champagne or pale gold color.

2) I entirely agree that the term "flesh-colored" is offensive, at least in the intent inherent in the phrase (in that it presumes white people to be the default for people).

3) I say intent because frankly I've always hated the term "flesh-colored" for an entirely different reason, that being that NO ONE is actually that exact color. No one I've ever met, anyway. Please correct me if you know anyone who can put on a "flesh-tone" or "nude" band-aid and have it not be visibly obvious. I would be seriously amazed by their existence.

I can see, of course, that that is basically as pointless as someone complaining that no one is actually white or black. For some reason it's always bothered me, though, every time I buy band-aids or see crayons.

On the other (happier?) hand, I've noticed a lot more "flesh-tone" bras in different shades the last few years. You can get a decent range of brownish colors to do the "nude" look in your undergarments, it seems. (The majority of them are creamy/pinkish, still, but I've seen some all the way up to a pretty dark brown too.) So at least our lady-bits of different races can now all be "matched" equally badly, yeah? :p

I remember the use of "flesh colored." Yeah, I'm that old.

But there's one thing about it that hasn't changed. It's always creeped me out.

That colour is hardly flesh coloured. A more appropriate description would perhaps be champagne-coloured, or pale silver-gold or something of the sort. It is definitely a lot more beautiful than the nasty "flesh-coloured" description suggests.

Precision would be helpful if we're going to use people to describe colors. Like "Richard Nixon-colored" for pasty white, "Hasselhof-Baywatch-first-season-colored" for an artificial tawny brown, and "Young Steven Chu-toned" for a reddish brown tone.

It's just bad writing. Banal. Sophomoric. Nothing more. I'm sure you believe this is insightful, but you're merely elevating the trivial.

I think there's some confusion here about the difference between flesh and skin. The former being the fatty/muscly stuff under the skin which is the same colour in all people, that is...flesh coloured. And they are not interchangeable words...I've never come across the word flesh being used to describe what is actually skin (see: a part of a fish you eat is the flesh, if something is 'fleshy', it doesn't have excess skin - it's more squidgy with fat + muscle).

I don't think the word has taken a whole new meaning with reference to colour, because it never meant what's being assumed here. Flesh is flesh is not skin. They've never meant the same thing.

It's not pink. It's light red.

It's not flesh coloured, it's light flesh coloured.

The internet is awesome.

Wow, people really care?

www.scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey has the original screenshot posted.

I'm reminded of an old New Yorker cartoon, perhaps from the mid-60s, which shows a flummoxed store clerk saying "Joe, these people want flesh-colored bandages." The joke being that it's a stereotypical U.N. delegation...

I clicked the link in the post just now and the text clearly says "flesh-colored." Did they change it back?

First, I'd like to mention that after reading through the comments and seeing the word "flesh" about five billion times, I have come to the realization that the word "flesh" grosses me the heck out.

Second, that gown is robot-flesh colored at best (and as we all know, robot-racist language doesn't count anyway).

Third, re: the "flesh-colored band aid" thing: I can see how the origin of using that particular color would be controversial, and how calling them "flesh-colored" or "skin-tone" or whatever else you could use to describe the skin of weirdly pinkish-beige people - yeah, it's shitty.

So I was considering alternative solutions, because "beige" is a different crayon from "flesh" and as such they can't have the same name, right? Right.

First, I thought "maybe come up with a bunch of different colors of band aid for different skin tones" - but I feel like that would get the band-aid people attacked as racist, for implying that different colors of people need different colors of bandage. Plus, the crayon folks would find themselves in pretty deep shit if they came out with "Brazilian Flesh", "Black guy flesh", "British flesh", etc.

Then, I thought of one that *I* like quite a lot, because it requires only a slight change in terminology and thus might not be too problematic. Change "flesh color" to "a flesh color" - meaning, "This bandage is the color of a type of flesh that is not necessarily your flesh but it's a flesh that's out there somewhere."

I would like to put forth that we start a petition in support of that last option.

Migslitesia
ywed

All human flesh is the same colour -dark red. Skin colour is different. In any case, that dress isn't red so the description is inaccurate.

On the other hand, I saw a caption on a photo of Venus Williams at the Australian Open wearing shorts that very closely matched her skin tone, and the caption called them flesh-colored. The fact that it made me do a double take just shows how ingrained the association flesh = white skin tone is.

The track reminds me of another song which I very much enjoyed hearing ... I can't recall which one is it :-\ anybody know which artist I'm talking about?

Personally I've always liked calling those pale pink-beiges "chicken skin color". I'm white if anyone wanted to know.

Given its yellowy-cream and silver I expect the person is colour blind!

WHO F#%€£¥ CARES, pick something to write about that's actually important