Is "fair-skinned" politically correct?
I have recently seen "fair-skinned" written to mean the opposite of "dark skin".
In other contexts, "fair" usually sounds to me as judgemental, implying it is better.
Example: fair weather
Is "fair-skinned" politically correct?
Should I prefer another term?
Here is an example of the term being called questionable: First comment by heltonbiker to this question.
The term fair-skinned is common enough that it's very unlikely to be deemed as a politically incorrect term. I did some corpus searches, and found these excerpts, which I think would be fairly safe from being labeled as racist:
The transmission of UVA into the dermis of an untanned fair-skinned individual is approximately 50% of the impinging flux. Even-pigmented persons with brown skin transmit a significant amount of UVA radiation (30-35%).1
Non-melanoma skin cancers occur more frequently than any other type of cancer in fair-skinned populations, and their incidence has been rising rapidly for several decades.2
However, if you were brazen enough to say:
I'm much more likely to do my business dealings with fair-skinned individuals.
then that probably would be considered politically incorrect – but not because you used the word fair instead of light. In fact, if you swapped the word light for fair, I doubt the perceived unfairness of the statement would change.
1(Phillips and Verhasselt, 1994)
2(N.J. Lowe, 1997)
In this context "fair" means "light." You could use light-skinned instead (which in recent years has begun to vastly exceed fair-skinned in use).
The more important point, however, is that if a term is taken as problematic, let's say racist in this case, by a vulnerable group, then it does not really matter what the dictionary definition is ("fair" meaning "light" as opposed to "just") -- what matters is the way the term is perceived by that group. I suspect that the increase in use of "light-skinned" compared to "fair-skinned" in recent years has at least in part to do with this.
adjective. Fair: (of hair or complexion) light; blonde.
is not related to
adjective Fair: treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination
"Fair-skinned" actually has a positive connotation, in comparison to saying "pale-skinned," or "light-skinned." The positive connotation is likely the result of the Old English meaning:
O.E. fæger "beautiful, lovely, pleasant,"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fair