"On Having a Black Name"

[browngirl]

From hitchhiker:

On having a black name by Daisy of Daisy's Dead Air.



An example of what people said to her when she used to work customer service and she gave her name:

"Are you black? Give me someone white. I want someone who can find their ass with both hands, no offense."

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Guh? I can't imagine even thinking that, that someone would say that out loud amazes me.

...

Wow. I just read her post. I honestly didn't know. I'm speechless.

[gingicat]

*is incoherent*

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

God...

That sucks.

"No offense..." Yaknow, while I'm not normally in favor of passing extra laws, nor particularly in favor of violence, I sometimes wonder if the world would not be a better place if using that phrase entitled the person to whom it was used a free chance to punch the person who said it in the nose. It ALWAYS means, "Yes, I know I'm being an asshole."

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

It ALWAYS means, "Yes, I know I'm being an asshole."

I tend to avoid "never" and "always," but I agree. If someone genuinely doesn't mean offense, they won't say it in those rote words, because they'll actually be thinking about it: "Oh, please don't take offense, but I'm literally phobic on the topic."

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

o_O

I've been tempted to ask, "Is there someone who speaks English there?"

But...that?

Gah.

[eudociainboston.livejournal.com]

Grandpa (Mexican- first one in the family born here) adopted my mom (Irish decent). People would hear her hispanic last name and get very confused. She was a pale, freckled, blue eyed redhead. Grandpa was Mexican and looked it. Apparently if you have the last name Cuevas you are a migrant fruit worker or something.

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

I've had a couple of serious boyfriends who were Asian-American. That would be the only reason I'd consider changing my name when married, would be to frack with people's heads :)

[mtgat]

My very blonde aunt married a man whose last name was Vargas. My older cousin has the classic features associated with a Mexican heritage, while my younger cousin is, like her mom, blonde. I'm not sure which surprised people more: the blonde Vargas girl or the dark-haired one who opened her mouth and spoke with the broadest Baltimore accent you've ever heard.

In regards to the original post, people suck and I'm glad Daisy posted.

*hugs Ny*

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Telemarketers somewhat frequently call us and talk to us in Spanish. For my wife, who's last name is "Riba". Her Spanish consists of high-school language classes, and she actually got her last name from Poland.

Of course, her brother somehow ended up olive-complexioned and dark-haired. He worked as an undercover vice cop in the Tampa Bay area, where a lot of the gangs are Hispanic, so it actually helped . . .

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

There's a white woman here who married a Maori man and took his name. She went on radio to talk about how differently she was treated for having a Maori last name, as compared with the English one she'd had before she got married. The example that sticks in my head was mechanics who'd been happy to have her just drop off the car to their premises when they were talking to her on the phone (she had an "educated" sounding NZ accent), suddenly deciding they needed a deposit before starting work upon hearing her Maori surname.

[jenny_evergreen]

Oh my god I love that post so fucking much that I must say "fucking" to convey how much I love it.
I want to hang it on walls and glue it in books and...yeah. That.

And I want to change my name to something dramatically "ethnic" and not my ethnicity. And I want to name the pumpkin the same way.

And, yeah.

And I want to beat up that idiot and all the idiots with a giant clue-by-four.

And I love you and I love her and yeah. Just...yeah.

I have tears in my eyes.

Why? Because that post, right there, it says it all, you know? In just the way it needs to be said. And you listen to MLK, you listen to That Speech, and then you read that post, and if you don't get it, damnit, you are too far gone to even get to BE in the human race, okay?

Humanity is HUMANITY. We are all, as the Desiderata says, children of the universe, no less than the moon and stars...and someday, somehow, I swear to you, we are ALL GOING TO UNDERSTAND THAT.

*wipes away tears*

Not often something makes me that babblingly incoherent...when it does, it must be something special, that's all I've got to say.

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

I manage to confuse people with Smith. Some people can't handle the idea of a Jew being named Smith. I often then get "oh, well at least you are really Jewish" (because my Mom is Jewish, though my Dad isn't). I then want to punch them in the nose.

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention, I'd want to punch (kick really) something much more sensitive for a quote like the one in your post.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Heh.

My name is "Ian Osmond." My sister's name is "Leila Angelou." In my sister's Hebrew school class, one of her friends was named "Leigh O'Sullivan."

Growing up, I never understood the concept of "Jewish name."

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

And mine is totally Greek - how did that happen?

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks for sharing that link. Powerful stuff. I am not so sheltered as to believe that there is no overt racism in our society, but I continue to be astonished at how stupid it makes people.

I keep thinking that trowa_barton and I should name our children with some Jewish-sounding first name and his (somewhat uncommon) Latino last name. It'll be like the reverse of "Juan Epstein" from Welcome Back, Kotter. :-}

Humans. Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I am not so sheltered as to believe that there is no overt racism in our society, but I continue to be astonished at how stupid it makes people.

Exactly my feelings, perfectly phased.

[gingicat]

Thirded.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

oyeah. Tony and I talk about having a Jewish son named "manny cabral".

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I remember clearly when people realized "awfief" was a FEMALE name on usenet. The newsgroup I was on suddenly stopped respecting me and started patronizing me.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

That is one of the best illustrations of the principle of privilege that I've ever seen, unfortunately. Because my name is not perceived as "marked", I have the "privilege" of people taking me seriously on the phone. I get to not realize that that level of blatant racism is still prevalent - that people can and will actually *say* things like that. Out loud! Jesus Haploid Christ on a pogo stick! What rock did these people crawl out from under, and can we drop it on them?

I would have been happier not knowing. But I would have been happy because I was believing a lie. The idea that people have to deal with assholes like this every day makes me ill.

Knowing it's happening is the first step to stopping it. Thank you.

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

wow, that's overt. Yuck, what an eye-opening post. Thanks for sharing.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

The stupid, it burns.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

It's always fascinating when someone's life offers a controlled experiment on the crap some people have to deal with. Definitely a valuable perspective.

[aprilkat.livejournal.com]

Wow, that blew my mind.

I wonder if the phone provides that extra layer of "anonymity," like the internet, that people would say things that one HOPES they wouldn't to someone's face (as far as the outright racist language). It's crushing enough that people think it - that they dare say it to the person they are dissing is outrageous.

Fascinating.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

Internet, phone, cars on highways - they all create a sense of "anonymity" that can lead to insensitivity. Somehow that anonymity allows some people to be stupid and discourteous in a way that they never would be face-to-face. At least, I hope they would think more carefully face-to-face.

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

How unutterly RUDE! Being a Southerner from Way back, I can not imagine anyone with any manners even thinking something like that.

I am afraid I would have answered "no, actually, I am purple with green spots", just before I hung up.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

How deeply *ugly.*

[ailbhe]

Crikey.

On a lighter note, my first UK GP was a Dr Thaya[long Indian name I can't remember] and when he first called me, he said "A-yeel-bee Lee-ammee" and kept looking for me, over my head, as I walk towards him.

He expected a recently immigrated person alright, but he was looking for a tall, black, African woman.

[cellio]

WTF? What an ass!

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sending us this post - very illuminating. I am aware that humans can be stupid and insensitive toward each other for the most foolish reasons, but it the depth of that stupidity still surprises me. I am an optimist, I guess. Tyra Banks has an afternoon talk show which sometimes surprises me by the wisdom and intelligence of its producers in the subjects they choose to discuss. (I know I wrote to you about the amazing and sensitively handles show on transgendered people.) She had one show which clearly showed the ethnic prejudice attached to people's perceptions about names. She had a group of ethnically varied men and women discussing their first impressions of someone with a certain name, then showed them the photos of the ones with that name which were the cutest little kids you can imagine. It clearly brought up the stupidity of ethnic prejudice as it showed that the pejoratives connected with the name were definitely not connected to the child. When will the human race mature and get over itself?

[katarik.livejournal.com]

At my old job, one of the girls brought in to replace me has the last name Lopez. She's a redheaded white girl, and one of the other coworkers spent, I swear, five minutes going 'Is Lopez your husband's name? You don't look Hispanic! You're Lindsay Lopez, really?' and I'm glad I was walking out, because I might have come back just to smack him if I hadn't been in a hurry.

But I just. That post. That *post*, I want to *slap someone*, I. RARGH.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my life.

Then you get the other response: "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?"

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

I had no idea. I knew there was still racism but I had thought it had mostly gone underground. One of those things you didn't voice in public. Thanks for this post. I'm reposting.