Darren said where the term originated mattered.
“One of the resistance to BAME was it never came from activists and communities, it came from the government,” he said.
He said it was inevitable that people who throughout history had been described by others would “as an act of empowerment decide that they would describe themselves on their own terms”.
Donna thinks the term has the potential to ruffle feathers.
“There will be people out there, white people if you like, who will be agitated by that term, because it is taking away that Eurocentric power, the white supremacy,” she said.
The term has had push-back from some commentators.
When interviewing political commentator Connor Tomlinson on Talk TV, journalist Julia Hatley Brewer said: “Global majority means non-white so lumping everyone in together… its not just anti-white, it’s just a bit racist, external, isn’t it?”
National Trust used the term when launching a walking project and received a public backlash, with some X users accusing it of “virtue signalling” and “excluding white people”.
In a piece for the Independent, think tank director Sunder Katwala argued the term was a step backwards, external for ethnic minorities and erased their unique cultural heritage in the name of inclusiveness.
Writing in political magazine Spiked, writer Rakib Ehsan argued it was a “fundamentally useless term”, external that “makes so little sense in the context of the UK”.
