ugh.
I just talked on the phone with a co-worker I’ve never seen. When I hung-up, my cube neighbor and I were trying to figure out who she is. I commented that she sounded like she was black, hoping to jog my neighbor’s memory. All it did was make my neighbor go completely silent. I almost didn’t even say it, and I’m having a hard time deciding if I’m even going to post this. It drives me INSANE that everyone tries so hard not to sound racist or insensitive, so we never actually deal with the racism it’s covering up. Colorblind doesn’t work. It shouldn’t work. We’re not all exactly the same, and that’s not embarrassing. I have no idea what race she actually is. I’ve never seen her family tree. I just picked up on vocal cues that I’ve run into in the past, and now have associated with southern black women. If I described someone as sounding like an old white dude, I would shock about 0% of the population. The racism comes in the assumption that sounding like anything other than a stereotypical white person is inherently inferior. I don’t believe saying that someone sounds like a certain race is any more offensive than saying someone sounds friendly, or young, or cute, and it’s probably equally as inaccurate. What is offensive is if you discriminate based on your assumption.
And that’s my completely unnecessary, utterly useless, and probably deeply offensive defense of my description of the lady I talked to on the phone. I hope she’s actually a mean old 7’, 300 pound Asian hermaphrodite. That’ll teach me.