Monday, November 15, 2010

Why Do You Say That?


At work tonight, I had a discussion with my co-worker (more like a venting session) about having to implement a very specific telephone survey geared towards African-American males over 18. It was hard because no one was getting respondents easily over the phone.

In the course of the conversation I said to my white co-worker "the fact that we are only asking for African-Americans makes this number of respondents so small" to which she interjected "yeah as if they would even own phones."

Upon realizing the topic of this conversation now took a racist turn, I simply remained calm and ask "what do you mean by that?" I thought asking that simple question would simultaneously maintain decorum and reveal the statement for racist comment it truly was.

It worked, the woman apologized and the awkward situation ended.

I firmly believe that just calmly asking "why do you say that?" to a person who has just made a bigoted statement is the best way to begin to get your message across. Effective dialogues can only begin through benign patience by the person initiating it, even if the bigoted person isn't worthy of it.

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