Well, he said this: “During a zoom call with a colleague (who is of Indian heritage, his parents are both Indian, he has a very Indian name,”
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.
If I needed input on a potential issue with a specific ethnic culture or society then it sounds like a good idea to start with someone who stands a good chance of knowing something about it. Someone from that particular background is a sensible place to start.
It would be obnoxious to assume they must know all about it and must be able to help but it isn’t at all wrong of you to ask the question. Nor is it wrong of them to say “no, sorry, can’t help”.
I recall having a question about an aspect of Brazilian culture some years ago and indeed I asked the only Brazilian person I knew if they had any idea. They were not offended.
Sure, I could have asked my Dutch and German colleagues first but that seems like something of a waste of time and a little bit insulting to them and my Brazilian colleague.
It is code for " Why aren’t you white ? 
"
Which means he knows this person is of Indian heritage. And not much else.
It doesn’t mean he necessarily knows anything about the Indian postal system or much about India at all , which was the assumption the OP made when he described this person as their “‘resident Indian expert’ (as he is the only person with Indian heritage in the company)” (OPs words, not mine).
The assumption that heritage alone (again, going by what the OP said) would give them special insight into the Indian Post Office is definitely off base in a business setting.
Strong evidence that he’s of Indian heritage does not imply that the person knows anything about any Indian culture; let alone about every Indian culture. It’s that assumption that’s the racist part of it.
It doesn’t even mean that. It means he knows the person is of Indian heritage. That’s not the same thing. The person may be American, or Canadian, or whatever – I’ve lost track of which country this incident took place in.
Were they actually themselves Brazilian? Or was it only their parents who were Brazilian?
If I ask a friend of mine who I know has lived a significant chunk of her life in Bangalore a question about customs in Bangalore: that’s not racist. If I asked a random person who looks like their ancestors were from India a question about customs in Bangalore, based on what they look like: that certainly would be.
I don’t know their exact status. He lived in the UK but was back and forth to Brazil to see family.
He stood the best chance of knowing about Brazil out of everyone I knew, so I asked him. Seems logical.
So you at least had knowledge that he was often in Brazil, including as an adult and during the time you were asking about; and spent significant time there with family members who lived there.
That’s a whole lot more evidence than having an Indian name and wearing a turban.
Not a whole lot more than was presented in the OP I’d argue.
I’d definitely call it a whole lot more. You had genuine reason to think that the person you were talking to actually knew something about the customs of the area in question. The OP had no reason to think anything of the sort.
Not really. Brazil is a huge and diverse country and I had no idea if what I was asking was region or ethnically specific. As it happens he didn’t know but he remained perfectly unconcerned by my asking.
Haha! This Thursday is Diwali! Someone in our group Teams chat just asked a guy if he would speak about Diwali at our staff meeting tomorrow.
His complete response reproduced here word for word:
“Sorry I don’t celebrate Diwali. I believe its a Hindu festival”
There’s been a breakout chat where he’s being excoriated for his “rude” response. An example of why this DEI bullshit is so hard.
This is a guy whose father is of Indo-Guyanese descent born in the US, his mother is Scots-Irish American (her parents are still in Ireland). His family is very Christian (his email signature has a bible verse) and has been on both sides for generations. His last name is an Indo-Caribbean spelling of an Indian name (think Persaud for Prasad). As far as I can tell his accent is full-on Boston.
Yet he’s been asked probably hundreds of times in his 30 years where he’s “really” or “originally” from.
The people looking to be offended here are his deplorable coworkers. I took his message to mean, “I don’t know much about this, so I’m not the right person to talk about it” Somehow some white people are interpreting it as “Fuck you, I’m not a performing seal”
There are 24 million Indian Christians with Christian names. 200 million Muslims with Arabic origin names. Many names in India are shared with other countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh …
So this very concept of “Indian Name” is racist.
As a person of Indian origin, even I cannot be certain if a person is from India just from their name. A lot of Indian Americans have migrated from South Africa, Uganda, etc etc
More accurately, you did not pick up on any indication that they were offended. It’s pretty common for folks to engage in an internal eye-roll at minor offenses and move on with their days. They may not have been offended, or they might have been annoyed but didn’t think it was worth getting into a thirty post back-and-forth (or conversational equivalent) with you about it when they doubted you’d ever understand what they were trying to tell you.
Following up my own post to give an update.
He’s currently giving some people an education about how Indians ended up the Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad. Some people seem fascinated by this. Is this generally as completely unknown to Americans as it seems to be to my coworkers.
The answer to this question in particular is “Yes” and also usually “Yes” to similar questions about people of other cultures.
See above about “forever foreign”
Given the circumstances you describe, I think the second response, though somewhat coarse, is pretty appropriate.
I think I know them better than you and are better placed to know whether they were offended or not.
In the OP’s case, it seems unlikely that mistaking one website for another website is part of Indian culture, however.
I have no way of assessing the unlikeliness or otherwise. I’d probably start by asking someone with knowledge of India if they could help.
No. Most black and brown people have a very long list of white friends, coworkers, family members, classmates, etc. who have no idea how pissed of they have been at the casual racist shit people say without even thinking it’s racist. We pick our battles in real life.