Hmm you may be wrong there, since the first time I pondered on it was when I was reading a newspaper article and it read: "A black man has been arrested" and I thought to myself "that isn't a very correct way of phrasing it" this thought was quickly followed by "but how would one phrase it?"

A man?

Exactly - or a suspect/purpetrator.
It shouldn't even matter what the skin color (or even the gender) was.

Well surely there must be some way to describe a man and his skincolour in a decent way. What will you use if you want to describe a person in an official document.

when it comes to official documents it is country of ethnic origin. you wouldent say black man you would say north african or african european ect.
in a police suspects report im less sure what they do. on tv. they will say a black man if talking about an unaprehended suspect.
like with an application form you get a list of ethnicitys or the old *other : please state* option to cover them as incase you are a half chineese half african. there are so many possible ethnicitys that tey just put the most common on application forms.

You can't say North African when the man is born in Europe.
Anyway, we are off topic.

Well last :ot: post by me:

There are basically only three races:
cocasion
negroid
mongaloid

But that's so undetermined.
BTW - what should be wrong with describing a man as black (or white, yellow, red, brown)? I know it doesn't sound scientifical, but there's nothing wrong with it - unless a word has been misused so much it gotten a negative conotation.

erm dude.... jeesh.... mongoloid has become a very negative term over here. and what about the indians? they aint *mongoloids* i dont think.
seems inevitable that any discussion about modern terrorism will end up becoming a discussion about racial definition as the terrorists themselfs play a lot on racial definitions.

Most whites don't have a problem with being called white (some even wear silly white hats to show how happy they are to be white), however black people do.

And caucasian isn't a correct scientifical word either anymore, don't know why really.

stands to reosen that if you call a black person white they gonna be pissed.