Does it make you uncomfortable when someone describes a persons race when telling a story?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The people who start a story with "this black guy comes up to me and says...." Those people are racist. They may not specifically hate black people, but they are racist.

No, they're telling you a story, and including some description. If they say a child, they may clarify that the child was 5 instead of 15 (since that will give you a different mental image).

You're referring to white privilege and the default assumption that everyone is white unless you specify otherwise. That's cultural, not racist. (In other parts of the world, they have other defaults, unsurprisingly.)

NP here. Except that whiteness rarely gets described in these situations (when the teller is white). It's someone who is black, or Asian, etc. Why is whiteness the default? This is something that has always bugged me. I remember reading the local paper in high school and wondering why it was pointed out if someone was black but not if they were white. If you find it important to describe someone's race when telling story, make it everyone's race.

Signed,

A white person

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[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The people who start a story with "this black guy comes up to me and says...." Those people are racist. They may not specifically hate black people, but they are racist.

No, they're telling you a story, and including some description. If they say a child, they may clarify that the child was 5 instead of 15 (since that will give you a different mental image).

You're referring to white privilege and the default assumption that everyone is white unless you specify otherwise. That's cultural, not racist. (In other parts of the world, they have other defaults, unsurprisingly.)

NP here. Except that whiteness rarely gets described in these situations (when the teller is white). It's someone who is black, or Asian, etc. Why is whiteness the default? This is something that has always bugged me. I remember reading the local paper in high school and wondering why it was pointed out if someone was black but not if they were white. If you find it important to describe someone's race when telling story, make it everyone's race.

Signed,

A white person

Wrong. I've heard two African Americans discuss a story and point out the race of the "white dude". Again stop projecting or thinking you know what all races are thinking.

1) no one ever said black people don't do this
2) the fact that black people do this does not invalidate what pp said
Or the most often in this society whiteness is seen as the default
3) get a grip

[Anonymous]

I was at a swim meet with 1000 kids from 8 teams, and a guy looked at me and said-is the child in lane 3 yours and does she swim at xyz pool? I looked in lane 3 and said-yes, why? The man says-because my wife told me that there's a girl on the team with a beautiful freestyle stroke. I looked at the man-and I said-well she must have told you she was a Black girl. The man I guess got a little embarrassed. I mean-she had to have described my child's race to her husband. She's the ONLY Black girl at that pool location and maybe one of 3 on the whole team of 650.

But on the other hand, I will admit to telling a story and describing the person-or the person I'm telling the story to will ask me about the race of the person. Ive lived in America my whole life and America is all about race and class. Just be honest. I don't think about it as racism-I just think about it as reality.

[Anonymous]

Years ago a friend had 2 roommates that I had never met. We were good friends, probably talked almost every day by phone and hung out 3-4 times a month. She had all sorts of stories about her roommate situation, good and bad. She is white, I am black. After about 6 months she is telling me a story about one of the roommates and I stopped her and said: He's black!!!?? The entire time and in all her stories she'd left that info out. We were both kind of shocked, and honestly because she had never mentioned it, I really had assumed the roommate was white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When there is absolutely no reason to do so?
I automatically label those people as racists.
Like why do I need to hear that a Chinese doctor was rude, or that a black woman returned a lot of clothes, or that a white child was the best behaved, or that a Hispanic man was the judge?
These are things that I have heard in the last few weeks and I want to call people on it, but not sure what to say.

I don't know if "uncomfortable" is the right word, but it certainly tells me something about the storyteller.

Like the time my uncle was talking about a gay couple that lowballed him in a real estate deal. There was no reason whatsoever to bring their sexuality into it, but it was clearly why he brought up the story in the first place. I already knew he was a run-of-the-mill racist conservative dipshit; the anti-gay bigotry came as no surprise.

yup

[Anonymous]

I don't see a problem with it.

My friend told me a story about break-ins in Cabin John and it's because people leave there purses on the seats of their cars.

So I replied, white people. Which is true, because blacks don't do that. We at least put the purse under the seat or in the truck if we don't take it with us.

I'm not racist, it's just that different races do, have different upbringings etc. of the way they view and do things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom does that and she truly is a super nice/non racist person. It's just how she tells stories. It does make me uncomfortable, though.

Does she tell you if someone was white? Or only if they were non-white? That's what makes me uncomfortable--even if they aren't saying anything negative about the person, the idea that white is the assumed default is what bugs me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it makes for more descriptive story telling. Nothing more. Why be ashamed of our differences?

This

[Anonymous]

If it is part of the story or adds context, I don't care. Or if it is used as a discriptor, "Have you met my friend Sam? He is shorter, black, with glasses and a goatee?"

My father is notiorious for saying stuff like, "So, this black guy came to the door trying to sell me new windows." or "My friend Joe, who is black, came over for a drink yesterday." Argh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The people who start a story with "this black guy comes up to me and says...." Those people are racist. They may not specifically hate black people, but they are racist.

No, they're telling you a story, and including some description. If they say a child, they may clarify that the child was 5 instead of 15 (since that will give you a different mental image).

You're referring to white privilege and the default assumption that everyone is white unless you specify otherwise. That's cultural, not racist. (In other parts of the world, they have other defaults, unsurprisingly.)

NP here. Except that whiteness rarely gets described in these situations (when the teller is white). It's someone who is black, or Asian, etc. Why is whiteness the default? This is something that has always bugged me. I remember reading the local paper in high school and wondering why it was pointed out if someone was black but not if they were white. If you find it important to describe someone's race when telling story, make it everyone's race.

Signed,

White person here. When telling a story about a camping trip and a grossly overweight woman telling her toddler to call his daddy in a wife beater shirt an "asshole," I made it clear they were white hillbillies. Equal opportunity.

A white person

[Anonymous]

I can't stand it. My husband does it. He really is not at all racist. BUT he was in politics for a long time in a very diverse town. So it was just habit to observe and label things. The black side of town needed xyz and the Chinese side of town was struggling with abc. To him race paints a clearer picture of whatever story he's telling, but it makes me absolutely cringe. I've pointed it out a million times but he's not great at avoiding it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand it. My husband does it. He really is not at all racist. BUT he was in politics for a long time in a very diverse town. So it was just habit to observe and label things. The black side of town needed xyz and the Chinese side of town was struggling with abc. To him race paints a clearer picture of whatever story he's telling, but it makes me absolutely cringe. I've pointed it out a million times but he's not great at avoiding it.

Me again - there was a friend I used to talk about to DH. I would tell him stories of the friend and then one day after a couple of years DH met the friend. After we left he told me that he was very surprised that the friend was black, because i had never mentioned it before. But there was never any reason to. None of the stories I told had anything to do with race, so DH always assumed he was white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand it. My husband does it. He really is not at all racist. BUT he was in politics for a long time in a very diverse town. So it was just habit to observe and label things. The black side of town needed xyz and the Chinese side of town was struggling with abc. To him race paints a clearer picture of whatever story he's telling, but it makes me absolutely cringe. I've pointed it out a million times but he's not great at avoiding it.

Me again - there was a friend I used to talk about to DH. I would tell him stories of the friend and then one day after a couple of years DH met the friend. After we left he told me that he was very surprised that the friend was black, because i had never mentioned it before. But there was never any reason to. None of the stories I told had anything to do with race, so DH always assumed he was white.

Or maybe he assumed that you would have told him that your friend is black, since (even, or maybe especially in America), that's an important fact about someone generally. Also, it's what he would have done, so he assumed you would behave like him, inaccurately in this instance.

[Anonymous]

My hometown is about 96% white so to see someone of another race or to have them as a dr is rather shocking. If I had a teacher growing up that was black heck ya I would mention it. Where I'm from they don't really exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The people who start a story with "this black guy comes up to me and says...." Those people are racist. They may not specifically hate black people, but they are racist.

So, you personally don't see that a person is white, black, Hispanic, or whatever? I can't imagine not noticing something so obvious. I miss eye color a bit. But not hair or skin color.