IT snafu leads to IBM asking applicants if they are “yellow” or “coloured”

Enlarge / It's a safe bet that IBM CEO Ginni Rometty did not personally review the intern application form. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

IBM was forced to apologize after drop-down menus on an American recruiting site asked applicants to identify themselves with several racially insensitive terms: "yellow," "mulatto," and "coloured." Unsurprisingly, this sparked outrage on Twitter. A video is available here.

It seems pretty clear what happened here. The form actually had two different menus that said "Please state your ethnic group"-which is strange on its own. One of the menus asked applicants to choose from options including "White," "Black," "Yellow," "Mulato," and "Not a Brazil National." The other included "Afrian," "Coloured," and "Not a South African National."

The first menu seems to be a clumsy translation of Brazilian racial categories. The Brazilian census uses the Portuguese word "amarelo" (yellow) to describe Brazilians of Asian descent. The census also has an official category for "pardos"-Brazilians of mixed race.

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