So: The company I work for recently purchased a rare .com domain name similar to say “Post.com”. I am changing the name to maintain anonymity but that’s the general idea. We are a tech company that has nothing to do with Postal Mail or anything like that though, rather, we help do a digital ‘posting’ activity hence the name.
Ever since the name-change, we’ve been experiencing a large number of sign-ups for our digital service (intended for technology officers and engineers) of confused people primarily (almost exclusively in fact) from India who are trying to mail letters and asking us for help if their postal mail in India does not arrive on time.
During a zoom call with a colleague (who is of Indian heritage, his parents are both Indian, he has a very Indian name, he wears a turban etc) I said “Hey colleague name, do you have any suggestions what we can do to help people from Indian not get our site confused with the Indian Post Office”? To which he repleid “why are you asking me?” And I replied “Well, you our kind of our resident Indian expert in the company” (as he is the only person with Indian heritage in the company).
He then said “I think what you just said was racist”.
And I apologized but remained confused and did not press the issue. I would consider racism to be a statement with a negative connotation that is said with malice or distain towards another group. But my statement contained no such malice, I was just asking for his advice because I naturally assumed he would know a lot more about Indian culture and thinking than anyone else in the company. Similarly, I happen to be Canadian even though I have lived in the USA for a long time. If we were having a problem with our site being accidentally used by confused Canadians and someone asked me "Edwin, as our resident Canadian expert, what do you think we should do? I would not find that offensive.
Can someone please help me understand if I was technically “racist” here or what I did wrong?
Remember that with these things it’s not what you intended, but how it was received. It sounds like your co-worker felt like you singled him out based on the way he looks and dresses. Your comment was not meant to be insulting, but these days any time anyone who is different is called-out for any reason, it can get a little dicey. Especially if you are white. And male. Also, India is super diverse so to think one person would be the “know-it-all” about India since he may be from there is making assumptions. It may have been better to talk about it offline and not in a Zoom call.
But you said it based on his skin color, name and turban. As if he spoke for all Indians everywhere. Has he ever even been to India? Unless his job had anything to do with client relations, why would he know? Yes, what you said is racist. Only you know if it was done with malice, but even so, malice isn’t the defining aspect of racism.
I probably would have led by asking if he by any chance has some insight on Indian culture or something like that. I mean, I’m not the one to ask, as I tend to be blunt about these things. About twenty years ago at one job we were talking food and stuff, and I asked a co-worker, “hey, I wanna make some chitterlings, do you have any advice?” And she said “why do you think I would know?” And I said, “well, you’re black, and sure as hell none of my white friends know!” Thankfully, she just broke out in laughter and said something like "OK, white boy. First, no matter what the bag says, even if it says it’s pre-washed, you gotta wash those things out like three more times. Then … " In retrospect, not something I might say now, but I got my recipe.
Yes, you should not have made that assumption and singled him out. If you had put out a general call for suggestions with the matter and he had volunteered that would have been different.
Yes. Because you were assuming that because he appears to you to be “Indian” (the turban actually seems to indicate that he is a Sikh), he can answer for the entire subcontinent. The reason that it isn’t racist if you are asked anything as a Canadian is because you are WHITE. You are actually the same dominant skin color/culture as white US citizens, just from a different country.
This is extremely common form of racism, by the way, seen as totally benign by white people but not by people of color, who understandably don’t feel as though they should be required to represent their entire race all day long.
It’s not an actual cultural issue, is it? If people are confused about your company domain name you don’t need cultural knowledge, you need to google what existing company that’s registered in India has a similar enough name to yours to cause the confusion.
If your colleague was born in the US and has never lived in India, he’s probably sick to death of people assume he’d know <stuff you know if you’ve lived in India> and “that’s racist” is really the most succinct way of expressing “I’m sick to death of people asking me this question, which they wouldn’t ask if I was white”
Yes, it’s a form of tokenism. I just completed some HR training and it specifically called out exactly the type of scenario you describe as being problematic.
Since when is it racist to think that somebody from a certain background might have insights into that culture that other people don’t?
Even if this particular man was born in America, he most assuredly has heard stories of the “old country,” and while his knowledge of Indian culture may not be complete, he absolutely has a better chance of being able to answer that question than anybody else in the office.
A few years ago, the job I had started requiring some racial profiling questions. We were discussing it in one of our staff meetings. It specifically dealt with hispanic ethnicity. We had one staff member who was of hispanic descent. Everyone kept using her as an example, and speaking of her in the third person. I called them out on it and told them to knock it off. She was there, and she wasn’t the representative of all things hispanic.
I can say from personal experience that it definitely gets old being expected to represent one’s entire race all day long - and that’s from a perspective of privilege. I lived in Indonesia for 17 years and yes, it got tiring when ordinary Indonesians quite frequently expected certain knowledge or behaviors from me for no reason other than the fact I was a white foreigner. I can only imagine how tiresome it would be to face that situation without all the perks that came along with my status.
My first inclination is to say that part 1, where you assume that because he wears a turban and has Indian parents, was not racist. If he wore a three piece business suit I might think he was trying to blend in with westerners etc.
Your reply, that he’s the resident Indian expert, was a little off IMO. As others have pointed out, India is a big place. And you don’t ment ion whether he was born there or not…maybe he identifies as American and the turban is more about religion. I can imagine a more graceful reply, like, “Well I thought maybe you still had family there, had visited, or whatever.”
The truth is probably that lots of oafs presume this guy can translate something for them or that he knows a great recipe for an Indian dish or whatever. He’s tired of people making assumptions. I’d never mention his Indian-ness to him again.
ETA: If you had not asked him and found an answer elsewhere, would he have said, “Wow, here I am, an Indian and he doesn’t even ask me! That goes to show you how much they value their people at this company!”?
It’s definitely different when you’re white, but growing up in Chicago, yes, we white boys were asked that, usually in the form of “what are you?”, though often your last name would give it away. Once again, not exactly the same as being a person of color being asked “where you from?” but it is a question that can be asked. I remember shooting engagement photos for an Indian couple and, my last name ends in “-ski” so the groom asked me “are you a polack?” I just chuckled. “Yes, my family comes from Poland.” He kept using the word “polack” unaware that it has a bit of a different connotation here.
