# "Wassup" with black men? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 6, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448 "2003-08-06T22:50:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/201 "2003-08-16T05:42:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joel \* > \*\* Yes, one thing that sets us apart from the animals is that we can have logic and reason triumph over emotion. \*\* Actually, weaseling out is what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel. Goodness, I had no idea some of you were black. Did you know that you don’t sound black? \ **Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/202 "2003-08-16T05:42:54Z") Judging by the amount of racism you seem to experiance, am I correct that that you either live somewhere in the south? ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/203 "2003-08-16T05:44:53Z")
That post was for Biggirl. Lemur866’s post happened inbetween me writting my last post, and me posting it, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![BornOfStardust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@BornOfStardust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BornOfStardust)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/204 "2003-08-16T05:46:36Z")
I know the answer to the OP’s question…it’s because[black people love us!](http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com) ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/205 "2003-08-16T06:33:30Z")
Her post seems to indicate she’s from New York. Bigotry isn’t a soley Southern phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/206 "2003-08-16T06:34:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aesiron \* > \*\*Her post seems to indicate she’s from New York. > > Bigotry isn’t a soley Southern phenomenon. \*\* True, but it is more common there. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/207 "2003-08-16T07:54:29Z")
The only problem with the South of the United States is, historically, there are more opportunities to display one’s bigootry. If you live in a place that is monocultural, you may never get the opportunity to discover your inner racist… ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/208 "2003-08-16T07:57:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by syncrolecyne \* > \*\*The only problem with the South of the United States is, historically, there are more opportunities to display one’s bigootry. If you live in a place that is monocultural, you may never get the opportunity to discover your inner racist… \*\* So you’re saying that everybody is a racist?:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/209 "2003-08-16T08:03:12Z")
I thought she was saying that when you’re in a homogenous area, you may never discover the assumptions you make about people who are different from you because they won’t be contradicted. Also, you can find racism anyplace and that while it may be more expressed in the South, that doesn’t mean bigotry is an exclusively Southern problem. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/210 "2003-08-16T14:36:28Z")
Hee, **Lemuer866** _I_ got your joke. I’m curious as to whether or not **Biggirl** thinks the behavior of my X and what I was really talking about is okay. I see she glossed right over my post in favor of snippily dwelling on **taxguy** ’s comments. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/211 "2003-08-16T15:33:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lezlers \* > \*\*Hee, **Lemuer866** _I_ got your joke. > > I’m curious as to whether or not **Biggirl** thinks the behavior of my X and what I was really talking about is okay. I see she glossed right over my post in favor of snippily dwelling on **taxguy** ’s comments. \*\* I didn’t see where you asked me any questions, **lezlers**. Hold on–I’ll look the thread over again. Nope, still don’t see where you ask me any questions. Sorry if I hurt _your_ feelings by paying more attention to **TaxGuy** than to you. If you meant for me to address this: > [@](#): > > I was more referring to people getting angry about how someone else is making them feel. I dated a black guy for a couple of years with a bit of a persecution complex. Anything negative that happened to him was “because I’m black”. He would get upset because he was convinced someone was giving him the hairy eye or some such thing “because I’m black”. It got to be a bit ridiculous. He would insist that people were feeling negative feelings towards him because of his color, when there was little chance they actually were. all I can say is I feel sorry for the guy. It must be awful going through life thinking everbody’s giving you “the evil eye”. I actually know a girl like this. She walks around _looking_ for reasons to be offended. “Did you see the way that lady pulled her kid closer to her when we passed by?” or “Why did the grocery store guy put my groceries on top of the give-a-penny cup?” Me, I like to think everybody loves me (despite the evidence in this thread, I am quite loveable) until they give me a reason to think otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/212 "2003-08-16T15:42:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*I thought she was saying that when you’re in a homogenous area, you may never discover the assumptions you make about people who are different from you because they won’t be contradicted. > > Also, you can find racism anyplace and that while it may be more expressed in the South, that doesn’t mean bigotry is an exclusively Southern problem. \*\* When I think about it, that probably is what she was saying. Thanks for the clarification. Of course, in my opinion, it seemed to me that she was saying that **everybody** does make assumptions about other people, which isn’t always the case, and that they are generally racist, which, for those who make assumptions, isn’t always true either. Of course, the funny thing is, you can hang around people different from you, and still be firm in your beliefs when you make assumptions about them. For example, the recent controversial comment by Dusty Baker that blacks and Latino’s play better in the heat. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/213 "2003-08-16T16:03:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Biggirl \* > **I actually know a girl like this. She walks around _looking_ for reasons to be offended. “Did you see the way that lady pulled her kid closer to her when we passed by?” or "Why did the grocery store guy put my groceries on top of the give-a-penny cup?"** Hey, I dated that girl! The only time she was something approaching happy was when she thought she had good evidence that someone was trying to slight her and she was justified in getting pissed off. She wasn’t black, though. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/214 "2003-08-16T16:13:03Z")
That’s exactly the kind of behavior I’m talking about **Biggirl**. I wanted to be clear that’s what I orginally meant as well. I’m glad that you think my not endorsing that attitude is not unreasonable. I had an experience with that when I was a cashier/hostess in a restaurant way back in the day. This group of white ladies came in and I sat them, then this group of black ladies came in at the same time I had about 3 parties walk up to my cashier station. I couldn’t just abandon my cashier station, as that was my primary duty (I was watching over the hostess station) so I told the ladies at the door “please pick up some menus and feel free to sit wherever you like” quite pleasently. They just glared at me, stood there, and waited until I was done cashing out my customers. When I told them “it’s okay, you can seat yourself” they just snarled at me “oh, so we don’t get seated like the _white_ ladies?” :rolleyes: Sometimes people really do read too much into things. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/215 "2003-08-16T16:51:31Z")
> [@](#): > > _lezlers_ > I had an experience with that when I was a cashier/hostess in a restaurant way back in the day. This group of white ladies came in and I sat them, then this group of black ladies came in at the same time I had about 3 parties walk up to my cashier station. I couldn’t just abandon my cashier station, as that was my primary duty (I was watching over the hostess station) so I told the ladies at the door “please pick up some menus and feel free to sit wherever you like” quite pleasently. > > They just glared at me, stood there, and waited until I was done cashing out my customers. When I told them “it’s okay, you can seat yourself” they just snarled at me “oh, so we don’t get seated like the white ladies?” > > Sometimes people really do read too much into things. Are serious? Knowing the whole situation, we realize it was all a misunderstanding, but can’t you see that it was the clearest example of racism in their eyes and _not_ reading too much into anything? A white group of women came and you sat them. They, a black group of women, approach and you tell them to seat themselves. Knowing that racism exists, what the hell were they supposed to think? Did you expect them to know the inner workings of the host position? The whole situation was an unfortunate circumstance, but you can’t really fault them for using the old Occam’s Razor. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/216 "2003-08-16T17:21:06Z")
Well, considering there was no one up front when the group of white women walked to the podium stand and the fact that three seperate parties walked up to the cashier stand right as the black women walked in, no, I can’t see how it could be seen as a form of blatent racism. If anything, I’d think they’d consider it racist if I sat _them_ and not the white women. Figuring I trusted the white women more of something. Or maybe I just couldn’t win in that situation. _shrug_ [sub]before anyone says "you could’ve won if you’d sat them _both_, I’d just like to add that if my manager happened to see me abandon three parties waiting to cash out while seating one, my ass would’ve been in a sling[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![TaxGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@TaxGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaxGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/217 "2003-08-16T23:37:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Biggirl \* > \*\*I actually know a girl like this. She walks around _looking_ for reasons to be offended. “Did you see the way that lady pulled her kid closer to her when we passed by?” or “Why did the grocery store guy put my groceries on top of the give-a-penny cup?” Me, I like to think everybody loves me (despite the evidence in this thread, I am quite loveable) until they give me a reason to think otherwise. \*\* That’s interesting, **Biggirl**. I’d be interested in hearing your explanation of the difference between you and your friend. My explanation would be that you and her chose to have different emotional reactions to the same events. But I suppose yoiu wouldn’t see it that way . . . ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/218 "2003-08-17T12:25:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TaxGuy \* > \*\*That’s interesting, **Biggirl**. I’d be interested in hearing your explanation of the difference between you and your friend. > > My explanation would be that you and her chose to have different emotional reactions to the same events. But I suppose yoiu wouldn’t see it that way . . . \*\* No, we don’t have different emotional reactions to the same events. First these are not the “same events”. There is a difference between activley looking for preceived slights and reacting to an actually scared old lady who _jumps_ when she sees you coming, throws terrified glances in your direction and actively crosses the street to avoid you. Second, my emotional reaction to actual slights and her emotional reaction to slights both real and perceived is \* exactly\* the same. Anger, hurt and sadness. How she deals with her anger, hurt and sadness is to complain bitterly and look for more. I deal with it by ignoring the transgression. Just because I don’t act upon these feelings doesn’t mean I don’t have them. ---
**Author:** ![imthjckaz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/imthjckaz/32/3223_2.png) [@imthjckaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/imthjckaz)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/219 "2003-08-17T13:53:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lezlers \* > \*\*They just glared at me, stood there, and waited until I was done cashing out my customers. When I told them “it’s okay, you can seat yourself” they just snarled at me “oh, so we don’t get seated like the _white_ ladies?” > > :rolleyes: > > Sometimes people really do read too much into things. \*\* And sometimes **lezlers** is wrong in her perception of others. So, once you were done cashing out the 3 other parties, and saw that they were still waiting, what prevented you from seating them? Rather than say “it’s okay, you can seat yourself”, you could have just shown them to some seats. But you didn’t do that. Maybe you just too busy rolling your eyes. You are failing to see how it would look thru their eyes. Lets see "White women come in, they get seated, black women come in and get, “it’s okay, you can seat yourself”. Hmmm. Sometimes people really don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448/220 "2003-08-17T14:35:36Z")
_Sigh_ Actually I _did_ seat them. I told them they could seat themselves again as I was finishing up with the last customers and noticed them standing there glaring at me. When I assured them they could seat themselves they responded with a nasty “no, we want _you_ to seat us”. So I see, it’s okay for them to be rude to me if they feel as though they’ve been slighted. Needless to say, I warned the waitress that would be serving them that she’d better not lag with them and better make damn sure they recieved everything before the white table (they were seated in the same section) lest they think we were hitting a KKK meeting after work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wassup-with-black-men/193448.md?page=12)