In this section there are four passages followed by
questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked [A],
[B], [C], and [D]. Choose the one that you think is the best answer.
Mark your answers on you.’ ANSWER SHEET. TEXT A The Metropolitan Police
will no longer describe black people as black, as part of a new attempt to
counter charges of racism in the force. Both black and Asian people will in
future be referred to as "visible minority ethnics". The term,
which replaces the phrase "black and Asian minority ethnics" is expected to be
adopted officially in January. The decision was criticized
yesterday as unnecessary and confusing by black police officers. Anna
Scott, the general secretary of the National Black Police Association, said it
amounted to a step too far by the "political correctness" movement.
"We have gone from saying ’ black ethnic minority’ to ’ black minority
ethnic’ to ’ visible minority ethnic’ in a matter of years," she said. "There
has been so much emphasis on the issue of terminology, that the issue has become
confusing for black police officers, let alone white ones①. We are
risking becoming too politically correct at the expense of being clearly
understood by officers and the general public." A senior police
official told The Telegraph that some white officers were using the phrase so
that they would avoid saying the words "black" or "Asian", for fear of causing
offence. The official claimed that the term would allow these
communities to be distinguished for others—such as the Irish and the
Greeks—whose members are, according to the new terminology, "invisible" because
they tend to be light-skinned②. In the 1960s, the
phrase "colored" was officially used by some police forces. By the 1970s, this
had changed to "black" to describe people whose ancestors originated from the
Caribbean and Africa and "Asian’’ for those who originated from the Indian
subcontinent. The phrase "ethnic minority" was also widely used
as a collective term for both groups, but this was dropped in favor of "minority
ethnic" five years ago, promising criticism that it
was an improper use of English. Bernard Lamb, the chairman of
the London branch of the Queen’s English Society, said that the new description
was grammatically incorrect and over-sensitive. "I do not like this new term at
all. The word ethnic’ is an adjective and you cannot pluralize an adjective," he
said. "They seem to have used a euphemism for black and Asian when I imagine
most black and Asian people do not mind the empty words themselves at
all." The change will cost a significant sum of public money in
retraining officers and rewriting manuals and a spokesman for the Metropolitan
Police said that some senior officers were already using the term.
The spokesman said that the new term was not a redefinition but was meant
to standardize the phraseology used by the police. "Concerns
have been raised about the nature and range of terms used in papers presented to
the authority when discussing ethnicity." "To ensure that there
is a uniform approach and understanding of terminology used in future, and that
offence is avoided, the January meeting of the authority’s equal opportunities
and diversity board will make decisions about the terminology we expect to use,"
he said③. The author takes a(an) ______ stance to the shift of names.