So for blog #2 I have chosen to write about the phenomenon I experience in my daily life that I like to call, "the racial whisper". It goes a little something like this:
Person 1: I don't know you you're talking about...
My friend: Oh you know Jenny, she's about 5'3, dark hair, dark eyes
Person 1: hmm...no I don't know who you're talking about
My friend: She has really curly hair, it's kind of below her shoulders
Person 1: No still don;t know
My friend: She's really athletic and has muscles....
Person 1: Still don't know....
My friend: She's the (whisper voice) 'black' one
Another instance, which I find particularly comical....
Lacrosse recruit parent (who is watching practice): Oh we love Jenny! we always watch her play.....which one is she again?
**mind you, I am the only athlete of color on my team**
Teammate: If you have to ask...you'll never know
Ok so after all this...my question is: why do people always whisper racial terms, as if it makes it any more politically correct to say it quietly than it does than to say it out loud? If anything, it draws more attention to the fact that you are using race as an identitfying factor. So, if in the future you find yourself doing this....just own up to the fact that I may just be your only black friend in attendance on a particular occasian and you may feel less awkward by just acknolwedging that I am African American from the get-go, instead of dancing around the obvious.
Could be a bunch of things really. Maybe your friend wasn't sure how to ethnically describe you, being that your 'half and half'... so she chose to whisper black out of uncertainty.
ReplyDeleteBeing mixed myself (half asian/ half white), I experience some interesting interactions with people as well. I think a lot of people simply just don't know, and because they're ignorant, they have to whisper for fear of being wrong.
How did you even come about that conversation, assuming you weren't standing in an ear shot distance away?