United Kingdom
In today's United Kingdom, the term primarily applies to those of mixed Black and White parentage, but such was not always the case. In just about any area that fell under the crown's dominion, the term was made use of, and anyone of mixed Caucasian and conquered races could be properly described as being half-caste. As such, it did not necessarily carry any stigma with it. For some, the term half-caste is more offensive than mixed-race, even if the latter is suggestive of tainting and dilution of ethnicity.
Ruth Landes notes that half-castes born in Britain of colonial fathers felt rootless in the society they lived.
Read more about this topic: Half-caste
Famous quotes containing the words united and/or kingdom:
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish,—and that makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial; they are not equal to the work they pretend. They lose their way; in the assault on the kingdom of darkness, they expend all their energy on some accidental evil, and lose their sanity and power of benefit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)