It is inextricably linked to the ways Blacks have been derided and lampooned, ridiculed, maligned and dehumanized in both private speech and public discourse, mom2collegekids.
It is a different issue than that of which you speak.
Where the intersection of these impositions, and walking outside of ourselves, does indeed meet is in the arena of being a woman, and reflecting an image and idea of ourselves - as women - that is not prevailed upon, or dictated, by ideas and ideals of men. Historically, every woman has been subjected to her understanding of, and had to react to, our internalized understanding of how the world will respond to us as fertile, desirable, valuable-enough-to-be-offered-protection beings.
I wonder where other people draw the line between personal and professional or between personal and stranger. If the relationship is or could be personal, doesn’t setting boundaries that preclude discussion of one’s personal identity create insurmountable barriers and ultimately prevent understanding and connection? One of my best friends is Korean American. I’m white. But we talk deeply and personally and even lightly and comically about our heritage. She has very long hair and has reached a life transition and is thinking of cutting her hair. We talked about it a lot, looked at pictures and I straight out told her that her hair is so beautiful that she might feel less special if she cut it. She talked about the culture of Asian women and their hair. We would be less close and our lives less good if we couldn’t speak honestly and ask each other questions without being defensive, I think it would be a shame if people of different heritage avoided meaningful interaction for fear of saying the wrong thing. Even when race, religion or sexual orientation aren’t involved we all sometimes put our feet in our mouths, so there should be no expectation that well meaning people won’t do that about sensitive issues too. Of course one doesn’t touch other people, of course one doesn’t discuss personal things with strangers, of course one doesn’t pry about others’ children, but asking about shoes, admiring hair, or asking about the life a of a coworker that you spend 8 hours a day with doesn’t make anyone a bad person. It also strikes me that the person being asked might be making assumptions about the asker. Maybe the person is asking “are you from X” because her new future MIL is also and she wants to make common ground. Maybe that white coworker asks her black colleague how he deals with police stops because her son is a young black man. Assumptions can go both ways, and I know a lot of interracial families, including mine, and I don’t know a single one whose members don’t consider themselves part of both or all relevant cultures.
@zoosermom: If there has always been a double yellow line between the parties to the interaction, it has been generally understood that they are neither traveling in the same direction, nor, certainly, traveling together. (So to speak.)
You speak of sharing, one unto the other, but not of a type of cold, on-the-spot inquiry that can leave one disarmed for its irregularity and patterned lack of sharing in any form. I think these things are nuanced, and adults should be able to at least understand “how” to approach someone when there is no history of intimacies exchanged or a more broad social platform in which such doors are sometimes opened.
Years ago, my husband worked with a young Black man who had grown particularly curious about whether the woman (me) who called quite frequently and chatted with him before being patched through to her hubby was Black. One day he went to my husband’s desk and kind of hung around after exchanging pleasantries and could find no pictures or reason to believe I could be anything than like my husband (white). My husband, gleaning that there was something more to the young man’s presence, decided soon after to ask him where we might be able to get our son’s hair cut, as there were no barbers in the area where we lived who knew how to cut afro/natural hair. The young man took this open door opportunity to share with my husband that he had been curious for some time, and just did not want to appear rude, and so had not inquired. He told my husband he figured I was “the coolest white woman ever,” or I was a “Sistah.” They laughed at that and it warmed the air between them.
I was struck by this young man’s delicate sensibility in not wanting to offend, and yet, being fully curious, hoping for a way to answer a question that had begun to form after months of brief phone interactions with me. I respected his willingness to wait to have his curiosity satisfied.
There are some sub-cultures here in the US and some societies abroad where the emphasis on equality and being outwardly anti-hierarchical is such that calling someone “sir” could be taken offensively. This is especially common among Marxist-Leninist Maoist societies. Hence, their favoring the use of “comrade” to greet everyone instead as it imparted an outwardly sense of equality.
During the French Revolution, there was an attempt by some revolutionaries to get everyone to call each other “citizen” over old honorifics like “sir” which in their view had associations with the then recently discarded cultural views on social class hierarchies.
Also, some Americans from the NE/West Coast I know of had serious issues adjusting to life in some southern states where observing polite etiquette to the point of embracing honorifics like “sir”. To them, being called “sir” felt like part of a “feudalistic throwback” which in their view, should be discarded in the dustbin of the historical past in the late 20th or now 21st century. They also felt it added an artificial social barrier as opposed to directly addressing them by their given name.
Some of them who are teachers/Profs would be of the mind like some Profs I’ve had to encourage their students to address them by their first name rather than by their title or Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss. This was something which threw me off when I attended my LAC as I came from a more mainstream educational/social environment where students/younger people are supposed to address teachers/Profs and older adults by their title or Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss.
I tend to be afraid of getting myself into hot water with these questions. Intrinsically curious about culture, I talk with everyone about cultural and linguistic issues, whether German/Norwegian background folks who settled my state, folks with a common British origin name, Asians that I encounter at work, or my favorite, my African American work buddy who has fascinating analysis of the various threads of her culture in our city and elsewhere. Having lived in Asia, and having Chinese, Korean and Japanese relatives, read widely, studied the languages a bit, I love to hear their stories, and how they fit into the greater pictures of immigration and upheaval in the last century. As I get older, I find myself, amazingly to be a bit of historical curiosity, having lived briefly in Seoul when it was a military dictatorship, and Hong Kong when China was only something for tourists to gaze at across the border.
My Thai friends tire of the endless assumptions that they are Chinese, though take the questioning in stride. Most have Chinese grandparents, so not totally wrong.
Having grown up in a first name culture, I have trouble being called anything else. Though was soundly chastised by my Scottish grandmother when I assumed her friends called her by her first name. Uh…wrong. Mrs. She liked her title!
Yes, Cobrat, my Ds, now at state schools, are finding that sometimes using the honorific “Professor” is needed. Their LACs were first name only. The stories of the dropping of titles for comrade are interesting. A socialist relative’s group still uses comrade in addressing each other.
Waiting2exhale, what a great story! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. When you get to know someone over a period of time as a good person, sometimes I think one would want to cross the double yellow line and make a friend. I don’t think it benefits anyone if people come to the conclusion that crossing the line to friendship with someone different would never be worth the risk. And I do think that no one should assume that he knows everyone else’s backstory when deciding how to respond to a question. But as I said above, there is a distinction between a stranger and someone that you have enough contact with to know to be a good person.
^ yes yes yes. Of course there’s a difference between being jarringly asked “What are you?” by a stranger and having a great conversation about culture, ethnicity, society, and, of course, hair, with someone you know and like. That’s where barriers start falling.
Poignant how fraught these issues remain, despite many who are seeking to build connections, rather than define “other”. I view constructive discussions of race and culture as a source of hope for humanity, however naive that might sound. Human rights efforts are often enhanced when people have a personal connection to members of a cohort that is frequently marginalized among their peers. Our DD is in a serious bi-racial, bi-cultural relationship (with a religious difference as well). I watch how she and her partner interact, realizing that if they couldn’t discuss these things, there would be no intimacy: actually true for all couples. They help each other along (“nope, that’s a xxxx thing; not an issue here” or “we always/never do x at home”). Such discussions are helpful to anyone contemplating marriage. Having so many obvious variations may help ensure these conversations take place.
Context seems particularly important here. Being interested in how others think, live, cook, and view family is part of my make up. Over the years, one gains experience in conversations, and begins to learn to read cues, attempt to be interested without being intrusive, and try to phrase things in a non-provocative way. We will all stumble and fall in this effort. If we take no risks, we are sure to have no connections. At the same time, asking “what is she/he?” to a stranger is not a good starting point. Here’s to progress.
It’s interesting what makes our antennae go up. For example, I can’t help noticing that in this passage “Black” is capitalized but “white” isn’t. What, if anything, does this mean?
It means that for me Black is a national identity, chosen and embraced because for so long to be labeled Black was to be understood to be considered the opposite of/antithetical to/in no way in taxonomical, behavioral, spiritual or cognitive proximity to white people (American or not), to humans of the first order.
White people (you like what I did there, Hunt?) have never felt a need to embrace an identity beyond American, if they indeed were so, as American has so often been far more easily assigned (even where it was hard won, and the fluidity into Whiteness (capitalized on purpose) was a long time coming) to persons not Black.
Please read again before this becomes a hailstorm event: For Me.
Once a mom at the playground of our condo complex asked me about my 9-month-old son, “Is he a preemie?” This was her opening line. Not Hello, etc. Well, he was not a preemie, just a small kid. I thought it was a very nosy question. I found out later that this mom was a pediatrician, so perhaps she had some academic curiousity, but I still thought it was intrusive and “Hi, I’m ___ and this is my child, ___. Are you new in the neighborhood?” would have been so much nicer.
“Also, some Americans from the NE/West Coast I know of had serious issues adjusting to life in some southern states where observing polite etiquette to the point of embracing honorifics like “sir”. To them, being called “sir” felt like part of a “feudalistic throwback” which in their view, should be discarded in the dustbin of the historical past in the late 20th or now 21st century.”
No. Those of us in the North who don’t use “sir” when addressing people we know aren’t doing so because we think it’s a “feudalistic throwback.” Good grief.
We don’t do so because in the North, “sir” is a term used for people you don’t know personally and with whom you don’t desire a further relationship. Sir, you dropped your gloves. Sir, I was in line first. Excuse me, sir, can you get the waiter over here - I haven’t seen him in a while. Excuse me, sir, can you tell me how to get to 123 Main Street? Sir, I didn’t realize I was driving so fast, here’s my license. Because these are people you don’t know personally and with whom you have no DESIRE to know personally, we consider sir appropriate - but not with our fathers or people whose names we know. THAT’s why it’s odd to our ears to hear a child call his father or his fourth-grade teacher Mr Smith “sir.” Because sir is for people you hold at arm’s length. Not because it’s a feudalistic throwback. @@
"White people (you like what I did there, Hunt?) have never felt a need to embrace an identity beyond American, if they indeed were so, as American has so often been far more easily assigned "
Really? It seems to me there are more than a few Southerners who have established their primary identity as Southern and secondly American.
I seem to see strong Irish parades, Italian neighborhoods, and so forth.
I was taken aback when I was first called “ma’am” but it had nothing to do with it being a “feudalistic throwback”. Ha! I was 24 at the time and I thought of “ma’am” as an honorific for an old person. Put simply, being so addressed made me feel old.
In the north, sir is a term used for people you don’t know and (this is important) you don’t wish to get to know or have a relationship with beyond that transaction. Sir, you dropped your glove. Sir, I was here in line first. Excuse me, sir, could you get our waiter? Sir, here’s my license - I didn’t realize I was going so fast. Excuse me, sir, how do I get to 123 Main Street?
In the north, it’s typically then NOT used for people whose names you know and with whom you have a relationship. That’s why, to us, it seems snarky for a son to call his father or his high school teacher sir - because he knows that this is Dad or Mr Smith, and it comes across as keeping the person at a distance.
Of course, the etiquette is different in the South and for those with military backgrounds where it’s respectful not rude to call a loved one sir.
But it’s not because it’s a “feudalistic throwback.” It’s just a regional interpretation of etiquette. Get real!!