Is it so bad to mention someone’s ethnicity?
Posted by Cottontimer on 21 Mar 2007 | Tagged as: Me, Our World, Thoughts
Alister Cameron at Blogologist just joined the b5media family and while i was poking around his blog, I saw that he was apologizing for some sort of screw-up. Turns out he’d revealed someone who’d hired an “assistant” (I’d almost call the hire a spammer) as part of a link exchange/SEO strategy and this assistant had taken it upon herself to leave a poorly worded comment under her boss’s name on Alister’s blog. The comment got red flagged because it was clear via a RDNS lookup that the assistant was not the boss. Why did Alister have to apologize and what did people find most offensive? Alister pointed out that the boss was a white Canadian while the assistant was Filipino (later revealed to be Filipina).
Readers skewered Alister for making a big deal out of where the assistant was based and for calling this person a “filipino dude.” One complaint was that he should have capitalized Filipino. Oooook. Word Police on patrol. I’m a member of the Word Police too but if I were to go around tagging everyone who didn’t capitalize what they should, it’d be a full time job and then some. Then people got bent out of shape because Alister associated bad grammar with being Filipino in the Philippines. The horror! How dare he!
At the risk of getting trashed myself, I’m going to stick up for Alister, who probably has a harder time defending himself in the ethnic wars because he’s a white male. I’m a Chinese-American woman with a very Chinese name. (Hsien-Hsien Lei. Bet you don’t even know how to pronounce it. 
And don’t forget the Dr.!) I have a good grasp of the English language, if I may say so myself, but in the online environment, I am certain that many people who first come across my name immediately think “FOB - fresh off the boat.” Fortunately, most give me the benefit of the doubt once they read my work, but it’s a fact of life that we are judged by our appearance and our names and ethnicity are part of that.
English may be the most commercially popular global language right now (soon to be overtaken by Chinese and Urdu…haa) but that doesn’t mean people speak the same English everywhere. Jayvee points out that English is a national language in the Philippines. Yeah, and English is the national language in the US, the UK, and Singapore. That doesn’t mean everyone is capable of expressing themselves adequately in each of those countries.
Bad grammar exists everywhere and even people whose mother tongue is English engage in it routinely, deliberately. Remember ebonics? I’ve been living in London for over a year and only recently did I realize that “pants” here means underpants, and not trousers. I’m sure my friends were wondering why I needed to tell them that I’d gotten myself two pairs of new pants at Marks & Spencer. TMI!! And what about Singlish, Singaporean English? To me, it’s reasonable to expect that a person from the Philippines will use English differently than someone from Canada.
Frankly, I am MORE offended when someone ignores the fact that I am an English, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese-speaking Chinese-American woman scientist with a unique name. Being all those things makes me special. I don’t want you to pretend like I’m like everyone else. I’m not. Political correctness be damned.
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Is it so bad to mention someone’s ethnicity?
In the case of Alister’s post, it was. Stu McLaren, the blogger Alister mentioned, said it best - “is it necessary to mention names, websites and locations when the lesson could easily be given without those details?”
Now, I could have let one mention of the commenter’s ethnicity slip, but Alister himself admitted to “stupidly repeating the point that the commenter was from the Philippines.” Mentioning the commenter’s ethnicity wasn’t the big mistake he made - repeating it was.
One complaint was that he should have capitalized Filipino. Oooook. Word Police on patrol.
Umm… err… ahh…
Yeah, I’m guilty as charged. Call it nitpicking too if you want. I couldn’t resist pointing it out. It’s hard for me to repress the Grammar Police / Word Police in me.
Yes Elber, it is necessary.
It is necessary to identify them so that trends are made public. If you mess up, you deserve to be called out for it. Nothing that Alister said was a lie…he wrote no false statements.
Yet Fils all over rallied to chastise him for their personal hurt feelings and pride. Just because a people have a certain pride and access to the internet does NOT make them intellectual equals.
Only in current writing courses is it unacceptable to mention race, sex, age, and disabilities associated with the person of topic…this is correct for mass publication. But this blog is his own and his opinion.
You and your ilk have managed to scare a person into retracting his own words with fear of further Filipino Pride retribution. That being said, I would have to congratulate you on the success of your mission…to silence people that you don’t want speaking the truth.
Hi, Elber! How nice to see you here.
I was just teasing about the caps bit but I felt really bad for Allister who seems like a sincere, nice guy and got dumped on for something that to me was not intended to be racist in any way. Sure, he repeated himself a few times but it seemed to make the point that the blog boss was Canadian and the blog assistant was based in the Philippines. I suppose he could have been more conservative and not assumed the person was Filipino since a reverse DNS lookup couldn’t have told him if the person was an expat in the Philippines or a native Filipino.
In general, I tend to be more forgiving of bloggers who write in the heat of the moment and with emotion. Were it a carefully edited column in a newspaper or magazine, I would expect him to take more care with his words. In a blog with context, I really didn’t think it was a big deal. Substitute Filipino for Chinese and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Then again, substitute Filipino for woman, and Allister would have had a real brawl on his hands!
Female scientist surely? Is woman an adjective? Sorry, I’m being a real pedant today.
Graham: That’s an interesting point. A lot of us refer to ourselves as women scientists…. There are even loads of books about women scientists. Not sure about the linguistic argument here.
Yup, “woman” can be an adjective and women can be anything. hahaa I’m sooo funny.
From dictionary.com:
Did you happen to see the post Grace Davis wrote the other day?
http://gracedavis.typepad.com/i_am_dr_lauras_worst_nigh/2007/03/whats_your_nati.html
Oh, and, I do know how to pronounce your name.
you need to watch how many times you are throwing the word “Chinese” around in your post. Someone might get offended.
Sounds like some people have their “pants” in a wad.
Hi Cottontimer!
Don’t get your pants in a bunch about the caps - I guess it was a one way for me to break the tension of the rest of my comment.
I really didn’t take offense with what Alister posted and I told him so in a comment. I ragged on him for the caps because I was nitpicking. I agree with you though that he got dumped on for something that wasn’t intended to be racist.
On the mention of Filipino, like I said before, I think the issue was that he repeated it several times. Like you, I wouldn’t have batted an eye either with one mention of my nationality. On top of this, it was just to tempting to rag on him about the caps.
On your last point - Alister got off lucky, didn’t he. I’d hate to the object of any woman’s ire.
Grace Davis is also talking about this issue:
Internet, is OK to Ask Someone About Their Ethnicity?
opening grafs follow:
gain, I have a bunch of stuff to ask you, Dear Internet. This time it’s a big topic.
As touched upon briefly in previous posts, I am kindly requesting that you consider and respond to my questions on the often touchy business of asking a person about their racial background. You may provide your answers in the comments section or use the trackback feature to your own blog post on the subject.
Target responders are Americans and Canadians, though this topic may be relevant for the British and Europeans, any country or region where power in the culture is limited to Anglo whites.
When you say you’re English, do you mean the country England or the language English?
Personally speaking, one of the best things about the Internet and online communities to me is the way that the ethnicity filter doesn’t necessarily cloud other people’s judgement of your views - ie they think you’re one of them, until you pull the rug from under their feet.
Busy Mom: Thanks for the link. What a great post. I’ll have to go leave a comment and share some of my own crazy ethnicity-related stories.
Steve: You and Kendra must just laugh your butts off all the time. So funny. By the way, Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese. Offended yet?
Elber: Did you see some of the other comments Alister got? Sheesh! I’d like to go punch them for him. ahhaa Who knew I was so violent.
Liz: Thanks! Busy Mom shared it with us earlier but that is one awesome post.
Andrew: Hi! Thanks for the comment. In some ways, I think it’s a shame that we’re so amorphous online. Sure, it might lesson stereotyping but it also erases some of our most unique characteristics. So many people think I’m a man at first that I wonder what happens when they find out I’m a woman. Something must change in their perception of me. I just wonder what and how. I like people to know all of me, not just assume I’m like them, ya know?
You speak Japanese too? That I didn’t know.
Sometimes I’d like my ethnicity, my “difference” to be acknowledged. Other times, I just wish it were invisible.
On the other hand hearing ignorant, prejudiced comments from people who preface their sentence with, “I’m not racist but…” makes me want to hit them. (But of course being the small, demure Chinese-Singaporean girl living in Australia, I do not.)
[...] In response to my post earlier this week about ethnicity, both Busy Mom and Liz Ditz told me to go read State of Grace who tackles it from a more personal approach. She wanted to know: [...]
marianne: I lived for almost 5 years in Japan and took a year of intensive Japanese. I wouldn’t say I was fluent, but I’m ok navigating everyday living.
lol @ small and demure I’m so NOT!