The “why are you asking me?” is one of the stock responses given by etiquette mavens for when asked a question you don’t want to answer and is none of your beeswax anway. Along with “What a strange question to ask” and “I don’t care to discuss it.” It can be used for your ethnicity, your religion, private life, financial status, or the stain on your shirt. It means “stop talking to me about this.”
It turns the questions back on you and is meant to politely let you know the person doesn’t want to discuss the topic with you, and your choices are either to realize you made a faux pas and crossed a line, or continue on and make yourself look (at best) like a clueless dingdong. If a clueless dingdong persists with the line of questioning, the recommended next step is to calmly and bluntly state the issue to basically shut the dingdong down.
BTW it has nothing to do with being hyper-PC or a thin-skinned crybaby. With a colleague, you’re not obligated to discuss anything you don’t want to outside of business matters. And no, this wasn’t really a business matter. It was a veiled way of saying “why are you Indians so dumb that you can’t figure out that post dot com isn’t the same as the post office?” It’s racist, and racism in the workplace = bad.
I addition to the points other have made, the rule is not “I’m not offended by it so it’s not offensive.” You are not the sole arbiter of what is offensive and what’s not. There’s plenty of things out there that I’m not offended by, but I’m well aware other people are. I don’t get to negate what they feel just because I’m okay with it.
I don’t know if the scenario described by the OP, expecting his Indian co-worker to be knowledgeable about all of India, was outright racist. Maybe more just a bit clueless. Kind of like someone telling you they’re originally from Nebraska, and you say hey, I know a Fred Smith from Nebraska-- do you know Fred?
As an aside, I always knew that India is a huge, very diverse subcontinent, but I didn’t realize just how diverse until a couple years ago, when I did a week long training seminar. I work with many Indians, several of which were in our group, and the outside consultant leading the group was also Indian. When he was talking with us during some downtime, he shared a little of India’s history. Before the British came in and lumped everything into one big country called India, It used to consist of about 28 separate regions that were very different, not just in customs and different dialects, but often speaking very different languages. He took one of the Indian women in the group as an example, saying he was from (region A) and she was from (region Y), and their original languages were so different they could only talk to each other in English.
I’m not coy, but the subject of white self-righteous denialism when confronted with a history and patterns of racism is not, as I see it, the subject of this thread.
No it’s about some guy asking if he should never take a persons ethnic appearance into account when having a discussion. Be careful of the answer. It’s a minefield.
Well, as has been pointed out, “brown skinned guy” does not mean “Indian,” it could mean Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan. The guy could have been born in the USA, Canada, Australia, or who knows where. Even within India, I mean, that’s a huge, multicultural country. The difference between a Sikh from Punjab and a Hindu from Hyderabad is as great as between a Pole and a Spaniard. I presume if you wanted insight into customers from Madrid, you would not ask a person from Warsaw just because he had white skin.
The long and short of it is this; do not assume a person has insight into another country’s culture because of the person’s apparent race. You are assigning characteristics to that person based on their race, which is insulting. If the guy had some insight into Indian customers, he’d have volunteered it.
Or we can look at the OP. Edwin, what would be your suggestion for solving this problem if the confused people were from Helsinki?
If this confusion happened once, you might laugh at the misunderstanding. But if it happened to you regularly throughout your career, and was interspersed with hilarious Finnish accents and other jokes at your expense, you might get tired of it.
Had he ever lived in India? Lived there for any extended period of time as an adult? Lived in the part of India you were getting those inquiries from?
If the answer to all three isn’t ‘yes’, then yes, you were being racist.
Someone else in the office who doesn’t look “Indian” may have lived there for ten years and had considerable experience in the particular area you’re having trouble with.
And “India” is not a monolith. You’re doing the equivalent of asking somebody whose parents once lived in New York City why something is customary in agricultural areas in Texas; if New York City and Texas literally spoke different languages.
Wearing a turban to work in the USA or Canada is in no way indicative of either being Indian or of knowing anything about India. It’s a likely indication of being Sikh, which is not remotely the same thing. Most people in India aren’t Sikh, and many Sikhs have never been to India.
And while we’re at it: has the company considered that maybe having a confusing name isn’t a great idea? Why are they assuming that the problem is all with people who misunderstand it, and not with the fact that they chose a name that’s easily misunderstood?
No, its not racist. u asked a question sincerely in hopes of solving a mutual problem at work was also reasonable. guy was being overly sensitive and dramatic.
i’m arab and with the current climate of things have had some ignorant things said by others in the past but try to make others feel comfortable. communicating with diff ethnic ppl sensitively is a skill which not many ppl have the skill or will to develop.
No one said the OP was malicious. He didn’t do anything remotely malicious, but it’s still mildly racist. Racism can just be silly and ignorant, and it is to the OP’s credit that he’s sincerely asking for opinions.
This is where the problem lies. You never “know” something about a co-worker, unless you and they have lunch together a lot and talk about your families, hang-out after work, or are friends outside of work, which the OP did not indicate. You cannot just go by appearances - assumptions are bad. Especially bad are assumptions that are not validated.
If the person was endlessly prattling-on about India and how great it was and all that, then it may have been OK to take him aside and ask if he could potentially help solve the problem. But the OP did not indicate if that were the case.
And I agree the OP is not a racist, but what was said could be thought-of that way.
Well, he said this: “During a zoom call with a colleague (who is of Indian heritage, his parents are both Indian,”
That doesn’t sound like an assumption, it sounds like he KNOWS that as a fact. My opinion was based on that. If that’s not true, then I was mislead by the way his statement was worded.