Joe Biden sparks outrage after using offensive 'racist' term during first post-presidency speech

Former US president Joe Biden has sparked global backlash this week by using a 'racist' word during a passionate political speech.

Appearing at the Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago, Illinois on Tuesday (15 Apr), the 82-year-old made the comment while telling an anecdote.

The story was supposedly linked to Biden's views on Social Security - the main talking point of the political event.

The 46th President's speech marked the first he has made publicly following his departure from the White House in January, and Republican leader Donald Trump's inauguration.

Biden began the speech by explaining how he came to become involved with politics and activism, recalling his childhood move from Scranton, Pennsylvania to Wilmington, Delaware.

Discussing his family's relocation to The First State, the father-of-four claimed he'd previously 'never seen hardly any black people'.

The former president has been slammed (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

It was then that he used an outdated, offensive term to describe the residents of his new town.

"I was only going in fourth grade," he recalled of his introduction to Catholic school. "And I remember seeing kids going by, at the time called 'coloured kids,' on a bus go by — they never turned right to go to Claymont High School."

While he subsequently added that the segregation of Black and white children when it came to public school 'sparked my sense of outrage as a kid', Biden has since come under fire for using 'coloured' to describe African-American children.

After the speech hit headlines on social media, one critic hit out: "he's lost touch with current reality."

Another slammed: "The more he talks the less democrats have any integrity."

"Mother of Gawwwd will somone please bring him back to the [care] home," a third wrote.

The phrase Biden used is considered an offensive racial slur today - particularly in the western world.

In the United States particularly, due to the country's somewhat recent period of racial segregation and before that, slavery, it is largely considered a racist term used to describe Black individuals.

The racist term was popularised in the late 1800s following the introduction of 'Jim Crow Laws' in the states (Jack Delano/PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

A number of the devastating Jim Crow Laws, implemented in many southern states in the 1870s, described several facilities and locations as 'coloured-only', including public modes of transport and drinking fountains, and lasted until the 1960s.

It was also deemed an acceptable word to describe Black communities in the UK until the 60s and 70s, but has since been called out for its inherent racist ties to American history.

The equality charity Show Racism previously told the BBC of the term: "[It] was used to describe anybody who was not white, which may imply that to be white is 'normal' or default," says the charity Show Racism the Red Card.

"If we consider it, every human has a skin colour, so technically we are all coloured."

A spokesperson for the not for profit firm went on to emphasise it is 'much better' to use the word 'Black'.

"There are lots of rumours that cause people to feel uncomfortable about saying black," the representative continued. "But as a descriptive term it is absolutely fine, and is a term that has been chosen by and is used by black people."