Social akwardness mistaken for racism

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I was at a convenience store today and I was looking for something to drink, and there was a black guy who walked up to me and was really forward....hey little missy...what are you looking for today?...do you want me to help you find what you need?...he was just a customer in the store...
.......I would have reacted the same way regardless of the person's race or gender for that matter...but I had to walk away from him, because I am not comfortable with that sort of abrupt informalness from a stranger....

Anyway, he acted all offended and tried to make it out to be a race thing....Saying that that I was thinking that I wanted this N-word to get away from him (his words)....and i told him that was not what I was thinking at all....I just like to take my time and look for my own drinks...but he had to keep going on and on about it..

It was kinda frustrating.
It is not the first time something like this has happened to me.
I am the same shy, akward, standoffish person around people of all races...of course including my own.
I hate having it something that I need to be self-conscious about.

I know what you mean. I'm sure that this has happened to me too, but no one's ever actually told me their thoughts. I'm awkward around everyone, so I've had awkward interactions with black people. If someone thinks that people are always aware of his color, he's wrong, because I don't think that most people (but I don't know how many really) really think about people's color. I've found myself on a couple of occasions when someone mentions the fact that someone is black, saying "Oh, I forgot lol ".

I can relate, plus sometimes my face-blindness is worse with non-caucasians. Of couse, some individuals, regardless of race, have faces that just don't stick in memory.

I seem to have the same problem around foreigners. I always end up offending them somehow when I don't mean to. Something about my body language or tone of voice really gets their goat.

oh yeah...the face blindness thing....(sigh)...I am pretty much just as likely to not recognise caucasians...but there are scenarios when it has seemed like something else, and people have gotten offended.

It is difficult across the board (race involved or not) when you don't get the chance to explain yourself...and get misinterpreted and end up rubbing people the the wrong way

Isn't it annoying when people inflict their reality onto yours? He felt insecure about himself, and so he projected this onto you, when all you were doing was minding your own business? I have had this a lot, since I came to the south. Being multi-racial, I often get people of color acting proprietary with me, as if I had some special obligation to be friendly to them. Or to endure this enforced familiarity. I have seen people try to make very intrusive eye contact, just to get me to respond to some inane greeting, when I don't know them and don't necessarily want to, at the particular moment. I am not hostile or unfriendly. I am just like a cat. When I don't want attention, I DON"T WANT IT!

I think people like store clerks and the like are too focused in what they believe is the way to get promoted and forget that they are being invasive. Then, when someone that doesn't need their help tries to shrug them off they don't take it well.
I had this happen to me twice, in Paris, not long ago.

First, at a museum entrance: the guy opening the door was asking everyone what they wanted to see and giving them directions. I moved past him while he was busy as I only wanted to see some leaflets and if the place had a snack bar or whatever. The guy bothers to call me back - already in a rude way - and, since I'm not that quick to come up with a reply in French, he repeated the question, in English, in a rather scornful way; to which I replied ". . .just wanna look around". Less than a minute later, I conclude that I'm not interested and proceed to leave. He makes a comment and sniggers at me on the way out.

Second, at similar place, when queuing to buy the tickets; another useless-idiot employee shows up with a form to fill. She was asking people what exhibits did they want to see and filling that pointless form for them which specified the kind of ticket they wanted to buy. I already knew what I wanted so when she arrived I told her the kind of ticket I was aiming for. Not good; I had to tell her what exhibits I wanted to see (of which I only had a rough grasp) and she would do the thinking for me. Again, I'm too slow in French so she brusquely inquired my nationality and forced me to speak in my native tongue; if I tried any other language, she'd interrupt me raising her index finger and ordering me to speak in my native tongue in the same way one tells someone to shut up. The situation was messy, with kiddies in queue turning around and staring, because the way I speak my language is obviously not quite the way she was taught and so she kept getting confused and so I had to repeat myself. Anyway, she finally concluded the ticket I needed was so and so - which turned out to be the same I had told her I wanted in order to get rid of her. . . Only that she had to be the one telling me to buy that ticket. . . in a rude way.
I think. . . phew. . . finally got rid of her. She's still there blatantly staring at me. . . so I get it and say "Merci" and she leaves like saying "I taught you how to say thanks".

Little people. . . trying to bully customers into acting like their jobs are not pointless.
I'm sure both could read me in that I thought this when I saw them. . .

I was taught that the N-word was a terrible word that is used to be the ultimate insult towards a black person and never to say it. I was home-schooled for a while and when I went back to school I was confused when I heard some of the black kids calling other black kids the N-word. I was so confused that I just walked up and asked them "wait, I thought n****r was supposed to be a bad word towards you people, why are you calling each other that?" In retrospect, I don't think I could have asked that question any worse even if I tried. I also later learned that "you people" is considered insulting when applied to blacks from a TV show. I didn't mean it to be racist, I was just asking a question because I didn't know that they would get mad enough to attack me. Fortunately for me, I can take care of myself, but I can imagine another Aspie making the same mistake. If they had knifes or guns I might've been killed for asking that question even though I didn't mean it in a bad way.

Last edited by GoatOnFire on 31 Mar 2008, 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, they all look the same to me too .

j/k

I get racist accusations rarely. One man asked me for a date and when I said no, he brought up the race card. Since he lives in my apartment complex, he gives me a disgusted look now. Hey, I never brought it up, wasn't thinking about it at the time. I said no because I couln't help but notice the stream of women in his apartment at all hours, the conversations about drug selling to some neighbors, and the women in cars driving up to his place, telling him about people they are going to f*** tonight. Now please, please tell me I don't have to tolerate that and find a better reason to say no to this man, because of "cultural differences" and race. Any accusations about the bad behavior, the race card gets pulled out too.

Another man, hispanic, he threw the race card too when he asked for a date and I said no. It was for how he looked -- he was embarrassingly short! Not to mention rude and pushy and just not kind with words. But noo, it has to be for the meanest harshest accusations.

I have to suck up these labels because making a big argument against it somehow means I'm guilty. I wish I had a card to throw at people when they said no to me, instead of having to look at my personality and character flaws and feel responsibility for it. Shoot, I lived in a city where whit... I mean European American - thank you very much - was the minority, and I never threw a card then. It's not right. It's a wicked trick to pull that card. I don't mean to inflame the readers or anything, and I don't want to start a debate, but that is just what comes out, and for once I'm not going to smile about it.

LOL



How short is that?. (just curious)

_________

Now, seriously, I got the same thing (and not just me). I'm accussed of racism when I say I'm not physically attracted to anything that's not white-caucasian. It's not racism - in fact; I think black people can look really cool sometimes - it's just that my body says I'm not attracted.

I can relate to this. Around here everything you say gets interpreted as a racist remark - especially if you disagree with a black person.

Last week I said to a colleague that he has a cool car (I could see that he was very proud of it) and he thought I was being condescending - almost wanted to beat me up.

I can very much relate to this, the other day I had to wait for a friend outside a supermarket and I was getting really worked up and stimming and a black woman came up, put her hands around my shoulders and said 'Jesus loves you' I staggered away from her, it was nothing to do with colour of skin, religion or anything, but no one touches me, only family can sometimes touch me, but she was uber insulted. I don't think that way, it doesn't even make sense to me, im constantly having arguments with my grandparents because their sometimes racist and homophobic views just make no sense. Im like a dog with a bone.

Yes! I hate it when people project their problems and insecurities onto me.

just to clarify..my silly experience was with another customer in the convenience store...

Store clerks are another can o-worms.

Yes, I feel this way too.
Have heard tv people discuss the scenario of "if a group of black teenage boys was walking towards you on the street, would you cross to other side (to avoid them) ?" If one answers yes, conclusion is that reveals one's racism. But that's so ridiculous, because any group of people frightens me, a group of young people frightens me, and a group of males frighten me. How is that about skin color ? Almost all people of any sort (including those who share my demographic features) scare me-merely being outside my home in a public place gives me constant anxiety/panic.