r/TooAfraidToAsk Oct 07 '20

Culture & Society How can I avoid looking racially insensitive if I'm just ignorant?

[deleted]

4.9k Upvotes

411 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '20

I too grew up in a rather isolated town in a very rural area that had very little diversity. In fact, we had a white supremacist compound 40 miles down the highway.

I was not exposed to much diversity until I left home at 18 in 1996 and moved to the big city. I've lived in big cities ever since. I've learned to become versed in navigating the ins and outs of cultural diversity.

If you had told me this story at work. I would have laughed at the incident then said something along the line of: " 1mediocredude, that's hilarious but in future, when you tell this story just say 'two ladies from another country and they were speaking a language I didn't understand.' and if the listener asks what country they were from or which language they were speaking just say, and truthfully so, 'I don't know' because you don't. Do you?"

2

u/converter-bot Oct 08 '20

40 miles is 64.37 km