I suspect most people make internal assumptions, or at least harbor suspicions. A considerate person puts some thought into how to act on those assumptions/suspicions, weighing the consequences to themselves and others if they turn out to be wrong. The OP made an assumption, chose a poor course of action because they didn’t consider the consequences of being wrong, and ended up damaging one or more professional relationships.
Just thinking about this, I played football recently with a few people who didn’t know me that well.
At one point someone threw me the ball at a throw-in and said that seeing I was a big lad I could put in a long-throw to the penalty area.
Sadly not I had to tell them. My right shoulder is stuffed and a 5 yard gentle chuck is the most I can manage.
The person made a reasonable assumption of my ability based on my looks alone. They were wrong but it was entirely benign and unremarkable.
I don’t think it is reasonable for anyone to claim that they never make assumptions based on looks.
Right, like when someone is offended over being called out for making a racist comment.
Exactly. Someone can be accurately accused of racism and if they are offended by that accusation then indeed that would not be a reasonable reaction.
The fact that they feel definite, tangible offence is not enough by itself to prove their reaction valid.
Not really. Unless someone is goa’uld, then they don’t inherit the memories of their parents.
So, parents being from India contributed to the co-worker’s appearance, but it should not be assumed that they have any more special insight into the culture more than can be picked up from a book.
I mean, that’s pretty much the definition of racism, so no. If I find myself making any such assumption, then I question where it would come from, and try to do better in the future.
What other assumptions do you make about people based on their appearances, I wonder? When people do not fit the stereotype that you have assumed for them, do you get offended with them?
You don’t think that parental cultural knowledge ever passes onto children?
I’m not going to answer that question. It’s a strawman question and a leading question and is not relevant to the OP.
I certainly wouldn’t assume that someone’s parents being from a country makes that person an expert on that country, no.
Even assuming that being from a country makes one an expert on that country in the first place.
Do I make assumptions based on appearance? Yes, and so does everyone else. That’s a useless obvious question. The real question is, am I careful – as best I can be – to to not act obliviously on those assumptions, most especially when interacting with strangers who, based on their appearance, most likely have been on the receiving end of racist assumptions all their lives.
Not at all, but some actions based on those assumptions are smart, and some are stupid.
Wasn’t what I asked but no matter.
Is it unreasonable to assume that someone with Indian parents might know about India.
(I can’t actually believe that I have to explicitly ask that question)
It’s not unreasonable to make any assumption about anyone. What is being said here in this thread is what you do next with that assumption is what matters most. Do you a) check that assumption, or b) proceed ahead without checking and risk making a mistake?
What you asked was a loaded strawman “gotcha” question and unrelated to what I said. So I answered the question that is relevant to the thread at hand.
It is unreasonable to assume that that person is an expert on India.
If your question is actually that they “might know about India”, then you need to define what it is that you think it is reasonable for them to know about India. Anything else is something that you should probably address to a nice field on a sunny autumn day.
I’m Jewish. People assume i know some Yiddish all the time. I don’t, but it’s not an unreasonable assumption and i don’t take offense. But if someone called me out at work saying i am the office expert in Yiddish, i think i would take offense. That’s not appropriate at work, on a lot of levels.
Does someone who’s parents immigrated from India know more about India than i do? Probably. Do they want to be singled out at work based on that assumption? Probably not.
One difference between the common assumption and the work situation is that socially, it’s usually sometime who DOES know Yiddish trying to make a connection. The work situation is “othering”, and that’s usually unpleasant.
I certainly got cultural knowledge from my own parents, who grew up in Charlotte and Wilmington. But if someone thought that because of my parents’ background I knew the first thing about postal systems in Charlotte and Wilmington, I’d laugh my ass off. If they called me the resident expert in Charlotte and Wilmington, I’d think they were high. And if it happened on a semi-regular basis, I might start to get a tetch peeved.
Edit: What wouldn’t bother me would be if they pulled me aside and said, “Hey, do I remember right that your family is from Wilmington? You wouldn’t by any chance know anything about downtown Wilmington, would you?” I’d have to tell them no, I’ve spent hardly any time there ever and none at all in the past decade, but it wouldn’t bother me to be asked that way.
I live in a place where Jews are common. But i used to work for a company that was headquartered in a place where Jews are somewhat uncommon. The first time i visited corporate headquarters, people said things to me like, “I’ve met a Jew before.” They were trying to be friendly. But it was very unpleasant to be constantly reminded that they didn’t see ME, they saw “the new Jew on the team”.
That’s fascinating. You specifically created a strawman when you said of children that
When no-one claimed they did, and when I responded, very directly to what you said, by quite reasonably asking for clarification i.e.
You suggest that it is me with a strawman and a loaded “gotcha” question and so choose to answer a question that I never asked.
There was never any “gotcha”. The answer I was expecting from you was some variation of “yes, but it is not that simple” and the conversation progresses from there.
Sometimes we “gotcha” ourselves and we say things and take positions that give us little room for manoeuvre when inconsistencies, complications and ambiguities are pointed out.
So a few days ago I completed my manditory annual diversity training online which was an hour and a half that I could have been doing actual work, rather than being told things that I thought were blindingly obvious. Now coming across this thread it becomes clear why such training is important, as what is obvious to me may not be obvious to everyone.
Unfortunately then I come across this post,
demonstrating that it still may be a waste of time as those who most need it are also more likely to disregard it. But hopefully even if they can’t convince certain people to act with sensitively out of a sense of decency they may be able convince them to do so in order to avoid HR’s wrath.
Making assumptions about people based on their race isn’t racist?
How can it not be?
“You just said something racist” is not remotely the same thing as “I am branding you a racist.”
In my perfect world people are aware that their prior experience with one person, or with one group of people they’ve actually interacted with, does not necessarily transfer to an entirely different individual.
If my prior experience is that X is a thief and an abuser, I am certainly going to assume that I need to stay away from X if practical and defend myself against X if I can’t reasonably avoid them. But I am not going to assume, without further evidence, that X’s brother, mother, and children are also thieves and abusers. And I am not going to assume that about Y even if I know that six of Y’s relatives are bad actors.
This is also true if my prior experience of X is that, say, they’re a very good doctor, or a skilled mathematician, or agree with me about politics. None of that necessarily applies to X’s relatives.
I sure as hell try not to. And if one part of my head is trying to do so (say, the part that reacts badly to Southern USA accents, though that isn’t looks exactly), I make a conscious effort to counter the effect. And if someone points out a reaction of that sort on my part that I wasn’t aware of, I thank them for it.
In part because I’ve found out that any such assumptions are often wrong. In part because I find it anywhere from annoying to infuriating when people do that to me.
Yeah, I think it’s a combination of that and of assuming that something can only possibly be racist if there’s deliberate evil intent. ‘I wasn’t going to lynch the guy, I only assumed he was the orderly and not the doctor.’
Quoted for truth.
From your own cite:
When discussing concepts like racism, therefore, it is prudent to recognize that quoting from a dictionary is unlikely to either mollify or persuade the person with whom one is arguing.
Of course it does sometimes.
And of course it doesn’t always; especially in the fashion referred to in the OP.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that they know of the existence of India. It’s entirely unreasonable to assume that they know about specific customs anywhere on the continent.
I have trouble believing that I have to explicitly give that answer.
That’s a very good point.
I once had somebody in a library, out of the blue, ask me if I’m Native American. I was somewhat ticked off, because what I thought I was getting was the all too common ‘I think you look odd so I’m going to make a guess about which kind of group-I-think-is-odd you are’, but it turned out he himself was Native American and was trying to make a connection; when he told me that I was no longer upset at him.
(I have been guessed, in upstate New York, as just about everything under the sun that isn’t Pale White, except what I actually am by heritage, which is Ashkenazi Jewish. The person who came closest was the one who guessed me as Arab.)
not what I asked.