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When writing a story, is it still okay to mention a person's race? (1 Viewer)

Is mentioning race appropriate when writing a story?

  • Yes

    Votes: 30 90.9%

  • No

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • Total voters
    33
Joe T

Joe T

Footballguy
In another thread, I was writing a story of an event that happened last weekend.  I happened to mention a persons race in the story in what I thought was a simple descriptive part of the story.  Immediately, the board PC police jumped all over it.  Just wondering if there is some rule of thumb here when it is okay to mention a persons race in a story and when it is not okay?

Any help here will be appreciated.

:topcat:

Note, I sincerely apologize in advance to anyone that I may have offended with my earlier story with a mention of race or with my question in this thread.  Thank you.

 
As an example, a black guy might be telling a story to his friends or spouse and say something like this:

"I was at the supermarket earlier and a fat white lady ran over my foot with her shopping cart."

Is that acceptable in today's PC environment?

 
Yes people are way too sensitive these days.  You were stating a fact in the prior thread, no harm there.  I don't think you saying the driver was "black" was any more insensitive than saying she was "female".  People need to get a life.  

 
Context matters.

"I had this horrible black waitress the other day at the diner down the road."

"A couple of students were harassing an Asian student in class, making remarks about the shape of his eyes."

The second sentence mentions the student's race in order to provide context to the latter part - without mentioning it, it would be more difficult to understand the meaning of the statement.  

The first sentence adds in the info that the waitress was black, which should be irrelevant to the story (is a black waitress more or less horrible than a waitress of another race?).  The reader might presume that there was some intention for mentioning the waitress' race and apply some meaning to it, either correctly or incorrectly.  

I think in the majority of cases, it's more appropriate to exclude mentioning one's race, unless it is critical to the context of a statement.

 
Maybe it's a lifetime of conditioning, but when I see a story that doesn't mention race I'm immediately curious what the person's race is and why the writer didn't mention it. I say mention race of everyone in every story and be done with it.

 
Joe T said:
In another thread, I was writing a story of an event that happened last weekend.  I happened to mention a persons race in the story in what I thought was a simple descriptive part of the story.  Immediately, the board PC police jumped all over it.  Just wondering if there is some rule of thumb here when it is okay to mention a persons race in a story and when it is not okay?

Any help here will be appreciated.

:topcat:

Note, I sincerely apologize in advance to anyone that I may have offended with my earlier story with a mention of race or with my question in this thread.  Thank you.
Click to expand...
Link to the story so we can know the context.

 
Officer Pete Malloy said:
Never mind.  I just saw it.

No idea why you felt the need to include the woman's race in that context.  

Unless of course you were implying that part of your negative experience with Uber included having to ride around with a black person.
Click to expand...
Why would I feel the need to exclude it?

Is it offensive?

:confused:

 
captain_amazing said:
Context matters.

"I had this horrible black waitress the other day at the diner down the road."

"A couple of students were harassing an Asian student in class, making remarks about the shape of his eyes."

The second sentence mentions the student's race in order to provide context to the latter part - without mentioning it, it would be more difficult to understand the meaning of the statement.  

The first sentence adds in the info that the waitress was black, which should be irrelevant to the story (is a black waitress more or less horrible than a waitress of another race?).  The reader might presume that there was some intention for mentioning the waitress' race and apply some meaning to it, either correctly or incorrectly.  

I think in the majority of cases, it's more appropriate to exclude mentioning one's race, unless it is critical to the context of a statement.
Click to expand...
Would saying, "I had this awesome black waitress" be bad too? Or would, "I had this horrible one-armed watiress the other day" be bad? Why even distinguish between "waiter" and "waitress?" 

Who cares? I actually like having a description of the person someone is telling the story about. 

 
Officer Pete Malloy said:
Never mind.  I just saw it.

No idea why you felt the need to include the woman's race in that context.  

Unless of course you were implying that part of your negative experience with Uber included having to ride around with a black person.
Click to expand...
Joe T kind of sounds like the boyfriend of my friends little sister. He's also from Texas, and they were out here visiting. Forget what the story was, but he referred to someone as "this Jew," 4 or 5 of us kind of just looked at him and told him that wasn't really cool. He looked surprised that anyone would be offended by that. 

 
If you're serious with the question.

In the original post you made you said you had a black woman in a Hyundai with no A/C and a kid.  Obviously the no A/C was a gripe, I assumed the Hyundai was a gripe too (although maybe it wasn't) since they tend to be cheaper cars.  And I'd think the kid was a gripe (it would be for me).  So putting black lady among a list of gripes just kind of gives it a gripe feeling.  I'm guessing that's why people commented on it  I don't think you meant it as a gripe, but it's just what it's surrounded with in the post.  If you had said I had a black lady driving a new Lexus but the A/C was busted and her kid was in the car you probably wouldn't have gotten any comments.  Even though the story is almost identical and the gripes are about the same.

 
Officer Pete Malloy said:
Dude, this is weird.  

Do you mean to tell us that if she was white you would have said so?   

Her race is not relevant to the story at all?  Why didn't you mention her clothes or hair color?
Click to expand...
Good questions. I'm not sure how my questions are weird when looking for clarity on a topic. This may come as a shock to some, but not everyone thinks exactly the same way.

To answer your question:

I guess it it just a description in the story. That's what I remembered so I told the story as I remembered it.

For clarity:

'an older lady with a Hawaiian shirt picked us up' is fine as a description

but, 'a black older lady with a Hawaiian shirt picked us up' is offensive because of race.

It seems like a description to me, but if it offensive again I sincerely apologize for mentioning a persons race.

 
For context, OPM is sort of a hypocrite here since he often calls people "r#tards" and thinks nothing of it, but acts holier than thou when someone mentions a persons race.

 
kutta said:
Would saying, "I had this awesome black waitress" be bad too? Or would, "I had this horrible one-armed watiress the other day" be bad? Why even distinguish between "waiter" and "waitress?" 

Who cares? I actually like having a description of the person someone is telling the story about. 
Click to expand...
I would say it's more appropriate to exclude those facts when it isn't crucial to the statement.  

Like you, I do like detail and description in a story - for instance, if AZRon was recounting some encounter with some women and was describing these women, I'd want him to describe their race, age, and other attributes, because he's trying to provide a visual experience through a longer narrative - he's not just saying "I hung around with this Hispanic chick the other night."  I personally think that is distinctly different than providing a visual description of one's attributes ("I hung around with this chick the other night.  She was Hispanic, in her 20s, brunette, huge melons, etc.").

 
Question for the naysayers out there.  Is the fact that he mentioned it was a female driver offensive?  It adds nothing to the story and I assume he doest care if a male or female drove him.  Where  do you draw the line?

 
Joe T said:
Good questions. I'm not sure how my questions are weird when looking for clarity on a topic. This may come as a shock to some, but not everyone thinks exactly the same way.

To answer your question:

I guess it it just a description in the story. That's what I remembered so I told the story as I remembered it.

For clarity:

'an older lady with a Hawaiian shirt picked us up' is fine as a description

but, 'a black older lady with a Hawaiian shirt picked us up' is offensive because of race.

It seems like a description to me, but if it offensive again I sincerely apologize for mentioning a persons race.
Click to expand...
I didn't say it was offensive.  But since her race really doesn't have anything to do with the story...and there was an overall negative tone to the story...your mentioning her race could be seen as you being racist.

See if you can spot the differences.

A:.  They added another student to my already packed 3rd period class!

B:.  They added another student to my already packed 3rd period class.  He's black.

A:.  The kids next door keep kicking their ball against my fence.

B:. The Mexican kids next door keep kicking their ball against my fence.

A:  My boss won't give me a raise.

B: My Jewish boss won't give me a raise.

 
sbonomo said:
Question for the naysayers out there.  Is the fact that he mentioned it was a female driver offensive?  It adds nothing to the story and I assume he doest care if a male or female drove him.  Where  do you draw the line?
Click to expand...
I think it could be (I am not offended by either, FTR).  I'm not sure "appropriate" is the right term, but I think it's better to exclude those irrelevant pieces of info when making a simple statement, unless there is some context or meaning to them, or unless trying to provide an in-depth visual description.  It certainly isn't wrong (I don't think), but leaves the meaning of the statement open to interpretation that may be incorrect.

Also, I think, in today's world, there is more stigma associated with various races than there is with gender (specifically female and male genders), which can lead readers to interpret or understand the context of a statement through the lense of various stigmas.

 
Officer Pete Malloy said:
Never mind.  I just saw it.

No idea why you felt the need to include the woman's race in that context.  

Unless of course you were implying that part of your negative experience with Uber included having to ride around with a black person.
Click to expand...
Would a white woman bring her daughter with her and talk on the phone the whole time?

 
Joe T said:
You calling people a "r#tard" or "r#tarded" is offensive. But neither you nor the local PC police seem to care about.

"R#tard" = perfectly okay description

"Black" = possibly a racist

Seems like weird logic to me.
Click to expand...
  I'm not being the PC Police.  I'm trying to get you to understand that what you wrote could be seen as offensive to some people.   Are you racist?  I have no idea.  But including the woman's race in your rant seems like it was another negative aspect of your Uber ride.

If you really don't get that I don't know what to tell you.

 
Joe T said:
As an example, a black guy might be telling a story to his friends or spouse and say something like this:

"I was at the supermarket earlier and a fat white lady ran over my foot with her shopping cart."

Is that acceptable in today's PC environment?
Click to expand...
No. It should have been:

"I was at the supermarket earlier and a fat ##### ran over my foot with her shopping cart."

 
Joe T said:
Good questions. I'm not sure how my questions are weird when looking for clarity on a topic. This may come as a shock to some, but not everyone thinks exactly the same way.

To answer your question:

I guess it it just a description in the story. That's what I remembered so I told the story as I remembered it.

For clarity:

'an older lady with a Hawaiian shirt picked us up' is fine as a description

but, 'a black older lady with a Hawaiian shirt picked us up' is offensive because of race.

It seems like a description to me, but if it offensive again I sincerely apologize for mentioning a persons race.
Click to expand...
Of course the second statement is not offensive.  It's all about context.  

I don't think your original comment was nefarious or intentionally racist, but it certainly came across poorly when you're detailing a negative experience you had and inject race into the conversation despite it not being a factor.

I never accused you of being racist. And I'm not trying to be overly sensitive PC police guy, although you do seem awfully defensive about this.  Sadly racism is something that a lot of Uber drivers have to deal with.  There are passengers who cancel their request when they see that their driver is black. It's pretty ####ty. :shrug:

 
UniAlias said:
Of course the second statement is not offensive.  It's all about context.  

I don't think your original comment was nefarious or intentionally racist, but it certainly came across poorly when you're detailing a negative experience you had and inject race into the conversation despite it not being a factor.

I never accused you of being racist. And I'm not trying to be overly sensitive PC police guy, although you do seem awfully defensive about this.  Sadly racism is something that a lot of Uber drivers have to deal with.  There are passengers who cancel their request when they see that their driver is black. It's pretty ####ty. :shrug:
Click to expand...
I'm not defensive. I'm curious.

In the NBA thread, you can be called a racist for questioning Tyrone Lue's intelligence. For clarity, I didn't do this I just read it in the thread

Also for clarity, I wasn't disappointed at all a black lady picked us up. I was very disappointed there was no A/C. I was trying to tell a story, not be offensive.

I think some people tend to be a bit sensitive these days and immediately jump to calling people racists. I'm okay with leaving it out from now on. 

 
Also regarding Uber, I had a black guy in a very nice Cadillac sedan pick me up and tell hilarious stories while he drove me around one night in downtown Dallas.

Most of my experience with Uber has been pretty good.

 
Joe T said:
I think some people tend to be a bit sensitive these days and immediately jump to calling people racists. I'm okay with leaving it out from now on. 
Click to expand...
Here? No way! It's such a level headed group of folks that only tend to have rational, level-headed discussions.

 
I don't get the need to include the race of the driver in that story.  By including that point it implies you had a problem with it, like you thought it was "typical" or descriptive of a broader trend.  Sounds like an honest mistake, and the folks in there handled it well.  No harm no foul.

 
I didn't notice your use of black when I first read your thing in the Uber thread (believe that's where this is coming from). After it was pointed out, it was unnecessary details and not really sure why you put it in but didn't seem excessive. 

 
I have an amazing idea for a new business plan where a black guy in a very nice Cadillac sedan will come and pick you up and tell you hilarious stories as he drives you around downtown at night.

 
I didn't see the original post before reading this thread.  I imagined a much more descriptive story, and wasn't expecting four short sentences with such a small amount of detail.  That certainly made that one detail stick out much more and made me wonder why you included it.  If you were more obviously trying to paint a full picture for the reader, I don't think it would have been a big deal at all.  As it was, I think Niles Standish nailed it - it sounded more like a list of complaints, including the fact that she was black.  Not saying that was your intent, but that it could easily be read that way.

From your OP here, I also expected that thread to have a stronger, more immediate negative response to your mentioning she was black.  Seemed like a pretty laid back response from a couple of curious guys to me.

 
Joe T said:
In another thread, I was writing a story of an event that happened last weekend.  I happened to mention a persons race in the story in what I thought was a simple descriptive part of the story.  Immediately, the board PC police jumped all over it.  Just wondering if there is some rule of thumb here when it is okay to mention a persons race in a story and when it is not okay?

Any help here will be appreciated.

:topcat:

Note, I sincerely apologize in advance to anyone that I may have offended with my earlier story with a mention of race or with my question in this thread.  Thank you.
Click to expand...
I think you should do whatever comes naturally. As long as you're not ignorantly saying something, adding descriptions to your characters isn't bad.

Don't be PC. Your dialect is all part of your writing style.

 
I had an interesting day today...met a black man who liked to sing and dance. Later, I went to the bank and met a white woman who knew how to tap into money.  Then I visited my Hispanic friend who is gifted at family structure - he can put 20 or 30 people in one home. After that I went shopping and met an Asian man who could turn a television into a watch. As I was leaving the mall I talked to an American Indian woman who is very gifted in spirituality.

 
captain_amazing said:
Context matters.

"I had this horrible black waitress the other day at the diner down the road."

"A couple of students were harassing an Asian student in class, making remarks about the shape of his eyes."

The second sentence mentions the student's race in order to provide context to the latter part - without mentioning it, it would be more difficult to understand the meaning of the statement.  

The first sentence adds in the info that the waitress was black, which should be irrelevant to the story (is a black waitress more or less horrible than a waitress of another race?).  The reader might presume that there was some intention for mentioning the waitress' race and apply some meaning to it, either correctly or incorrectly.  

I think in the majority of cases, it's more appropriate to exclude mentioning one's race, unless it is critical to the context of a statement.
Click to expand...
Would race matter if this statement was "I am a waitress at the diner down the road and a black patron left me a tip..."

 
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