Might Be A Sensitive Topic But Here Goes!

JonSR77 said:
It's a bit odd for sure. I have heard of folks doing that before. It is a kind of weird, nerdy way of trying to connect with someone.

I don't think they mean to offend, but, you know, they do tend to offend.

I do think that folks who do that are most often very very harmless.

The real, deep, racists who are the real problem, they would never try to reach out to a person like that, in that awkward way. They would more stay silent, but live in some real hatred in their heart.

I doubt that woman had any of that toward you.


There is a comedian who has a routine, about her mom doing that...to every single person she meets. And how embarrassed she gets when her mom does that.

Rachel Feinstein On Her Aggressively Liberal Mother | CONAN on TBS​



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Thanks for that video! Hilarious!
 

morgan said:
People take offence at things that are so unimportant. Be a duck, let it wash over you.
To OP: the woman at the desk probably lost patience because you were explaining which glasses were which. These days there is a machine that can tell that in a second.
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It's not unimportant when someone thinks it's ok to talk like they're from the ghetto because their customer is Black.

I'm sure the lady meant no harm, and didn't even know she was being insulting. And if it happened to me I'd let it go, no sweat, but this was not nothing.
 
Murrmurr said:
No, they shouldn't. I'd feel insulted if someone started speaking to me differently than everyone else. I mean, she may as well have said "Yo sista, I notis you Black."

Jeeze maneeze
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Exactly! I would rather she had just thanked me for the glasses and not put me through that embarrassing performance.
 

Murrmurr said:
It's not unimportant when someone thinks it's ok to talk like they're from the ghetto because their customer is Black.

I'm sure the lady meant no harm, and didn't even know she was being insulting. And if it happened to me I'd let it go, no sweat, but this was not nothing.
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being there and hearing what ensued makes a difference, for eg tone of voice, mannerisms and so on.
 
Adding my 2 cents, I don't think anyone should change their accent or the way they talk for any reason. To me, it's akin to portraying yourself as someone you are not, which is not a good thing for you or the person with whom you're communicating. Again, just my 2 cents worth. Don...

Edit to add I agree with mrstime, sometimes it isn't intentional and I can understand that. When in the military stationed various places it was a natural tendency, after a time, to start sounding like those we lived around, in that case, well, it is what it is. My original comment stands if someone is doing it intentionally for some reason.
 
carouselsilver said:
Today I had an eye appointment. I had a couple of pairs of used eyeglasses that I wanted to donate, so I took them over to a woman seated at a desk in the eyeglass department. I asked if they accepted donations of eyeglasses and she said yes, so I started taking them out of the bag and explaining what kinds of glasses they were (bifocal,single vision, etc.)

The woman started responding to me in an odd way, calling me "girl" in an overly familiar manner, and her voice grew markedly Southern sounding. I had just heard her speaking to a customer earlier and she hadn't sounded Southern then. She was definitely being friendly, but I felt awkward and was glad to get out of there. As I returned to my car, I realized that she had, in an effort to be friendly, made herself appear foolish.

I am mixed race with an olive complexion but look more like my African ancestors than my Irish/British ones. So why did this woman think that I would enjoy being spoken to like a Tyler Perry caricature? It made me feel uncomfortable and ill at ease because it was like she suddenly lapsed into a foreign language and expected me to respond in kind.

My question is, do you think people should change their speech in a way that they think a person from another culture might like, or should people just speak in their normal way?

I hope this isn't too sensitive a topic but I am really curious to hear opinions about this behavior.
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I’m shocked that something like this happened. To answer your question, no, of course not.
 
mrstime said:
DH and I both have a tendency to mirror the accents of people we are talking to. We don't mean to do it and as soon as we realize we are doing it we make an effort to stop. We certainly do not mean to insult or make ourselves appear terrible.
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That has happened to me; when I did activist work around a Mexican population I found that I was starting to speak the way they did.

In the case of this woman though, I am not sure who she was mirroring because I don't have a Southern accent.
 
carouselsilver said:
Today I had an eye appointment. I had a couple of pairs of used eyeglasses that I wanted to donate, so I took them over to a woman seated at a desk in the eyeglass department. I asked if they accepted donations of eyeglasses and she said yes, so I started taking them out of the bag and explaining what kinds of glasses they were (bifocal,single vision, etc.)

The woman started responding to me in an odd way, calling me "girl" in an overly familiar manner, and her voice grew markedly Southern sounding. I had just heard her speaking to a customer earlier and she hadn't sounded Southern then. She was definitely being friendly, but I felt awkward and was glad to get out of there. As I returned to my car, I realized that she had, in an effort to be friendly, made herself appear foolish.

I am mixed race with an olive complexion but look more like my African ancestors than my Irish/British ones. So why did this woman think that I would enjoy being spoken to like a Tyler Perry caricature? It made me feel uncomfortable and ill at ease because it was like she suddenly lapsed into a foreign language and expected me to respond in kind.

My question is, do you think people should change their speech in a way that they think a person from another culture might like, or should people just speak in their normal way?

I hope this isn't too sensitive a topic but I am really curious to hear opinions about this behavior.
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"Sensitive threads are my speciality obviously", but I can't help you much here, though at sixty eight and counting I still get called " young man" and find it off putting, or as you suggest over familiar!

Maybe we just have to content ourselves by remembering that there are, (or must be) a lot of foolish people out there and so were bound to come across a few, (ignoring our own foolishness on occasion too of course! :) ).
 
Barbara971 said:
I’m shocked that something like this happened. To answer your question, no, of course not.
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grahamg said:
"Sensitive threads are my speciality obviously", but I can't help you much here, though at sixty eight and counting I still get called " young man" and find it off putting, or as you suggest over familiar!

Maybe we just have to content ourselves by remembering that there are, (or must be) a lot of foolish people out there and so were bound to come across a few, (ignoring our own foolishness on occasion too of course! :) ).
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You are absolutely right! I am sure that I have said or done the wrong thing in an effort to be friendly.
 
I've seen bigger storms in smaller teacups. Life is too short. I remember on a visit to Tasmania, the woman behind the counter of a shop called me "darl" several times (means darling). I like the breezy Australian style. I'm a 6' Canadian male called sweetie so many times. Never bothered me.
Blessed's logic at post 26 sits well with me.
 
@carouselsilver the fact that you mentioned the woman was white puts this in a completely different light. I agree with others that she was probably just trying to be nice, but in the end she was just offensive.

I'll agree with what @PamfromTx posted because my partner is Filipino. He is brown and could be mistaken for Hispanic. He managed a retail store in South Florida for years and customers would immediately come up to him and start speaking Spanish. He found this irritating.

I don't think anyone should assume by the color of someone's skin, their religion or sexual preferences that they want to be spoken to in a certain way.

Having said that, I've had both White and African American women in Texas call me "love" and "hon" on many occasions and I've just found it endearing. Yours is another experience entirely.
 
carouselsilver said:
Today I had an eye appointment. I had a couple of pairs of used eyeglasses that I wanted to donate, so I took them over to a woman seated at a desk in the eyeglass department. I asked if they accepted donations of eyeglasses and she said yes, so I started taking them out of the bag and explaining what kinds of glasses they were (bifocal,single vision, etc.)

The woman started responding to me in an odd way, calling me "girl" in an overly familiar manner, and her voice grew markedly Southern sounding. I had just heard her speaking to a customer earlier and she hadn't sounded Southern then. She was definitely being friendly, but I felt awkward and was glad to get out of there. As I returned to my car, I realized that she had, in an effort to be friendly, made herself appear foolish.

I am mixed race with an olive complexion but look more like my African ancestors than my Irish/British ones. So why did this woman think that I would enjoy being spoken to like a Tyler Perry caricature? It made me feel uncomfortable and ill at ease because it was like she suddenly lapsed into a foreign language and expected me to respond in kind.

My question is, do you think people should change their speech in a way that they think a person from another culture might like, or should people just speak in their normal way?

I hope this isn't too sensitive a topic but I am really curious to hear opinions about this behavior.
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I will sometimes call my girlfriends “girl”. This post kind of puts me in my place. I will be careful from now on. I’m sorry you were offended. I don’t think the clerk meant to offend you. I notice being older now and being referred to by “honey” and sweetie by younger people. Some take offense to this as well. I think sometimes we need to just show each other grace and move on from things. We are all human and make mistakes. We ALL get our feelings hurt from time to time.
 
I work with the public.

We had a regular customer (middle age white man) who would talk to African Americans like he just stepped out of the hood. He didn’t talk to anyone else like that. He was quite good at it. He had the lingo down pat.

This is South Carolina. No one around here talks like that.
Some found it funny. My co worker did not and avoided him.

He asked me why and I told him. He didn’t mean any harm.
It never occurred to him it might be offensive.
 
The reason I said that this might be a sensitive topic, was because it was race related. I was raised to be curious and welcoming to different cultures, since there are so many in my ancestry. The incident today did not insult or upset me, rather it was unexpected and weird. Believe me I have met many kinds of people in life and this was not a big deal. Rather I was curious to see how other people perceived this behavior. It's been educational! It is so easy to think that someone is being offensive, when in reality they may just be clueless. Which isn't a crime. It just makes for an awkward moment.

I appreciate all the input! I never thought that this woman was trying to offend me. But I was wondering just what she put on an accent for. While I didn't find her behavior particularly upsetting, I did think of it as being foolish and ill considered.
 
dseag2 said:
@carouselsilver the fact that you mentioned the woman was white puts this in a completely different light. I agree with others that she was probably just trying to be nice, but in the end she was just offensive.

I'll agree with what @PamfromTx posted because my partner is Filipino. He is brown and could be mistaken for Hispanic. He managed a retail store in South Florida for years and customers would immediately come up to him and start speaking Spanish. He found this irritating.

I don't think anyone should assume by the color of someone's skin, their religion or sexual preferences that they want to be spoken to in a certain way.

Having said that, I've had both White and African American women in Texas call me "love" and "hon" on many occasions and I've just found it endearing. Yours is another experience entirely.
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I actually like it when somebody says "hon," but I do not like for people to assume that I like to be called girl at age 64. I had an older, male neighbor from Texas who always called me "Darlin,'and I thought it was a nice way to be spoken to.
 
I must be very unusual because if I find myself talking to someone with an accent, I can't help copying them. I'm not mocking them, it just seems automatic. Surely I can't be the only one this happens to?
 
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