However, the term is associated with racism and is also confusing since it also describes people from India. Use native American instead. However, in the British context, it is not a helpful term since it would be difficult to identify the indigenous British in this sense. It is also worth noting that groups traditionally defined as ethnic minorities here in the UK are not a minority in Europe nor the world. When addressing a US audience, it is important to take into account the fact that US sociologists use the term not in a numerical sense, but as a minority if they have minimal power.
Minority ethnic is preferred to ethnic minority as everyone belongs to an ethnic group.
Minority ethnic, places the emphasis on the minority status rather than the ethnicity, whereas ethnic minority places the emphasis on the minority status of the group. It should be recognised that these terms are bounded by the limited concepts and language of a racial discourse that privileges the notion of essential races. Often described in terms of hybridity, borderlands, shifting boundaries and multiplicity, such emerging identities produce new cultural spaces which mark post-modern times. However, others object to this term on the grounds that it assumes that they are all equal rather than that some are dominated by the racism of others. Otherwise it has strong colonialist connotations.