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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Was I unintentionally racist??

48 replies

Changedmehandle · 06/05/2017 23:20

NC for this as it's delicate!
I have thought about this since it happened and I'm really upset about it.
Earlier I had a call from a company I use asking customer satisfaction questions about my experience using them.
I couldn't understand the accent of the person speaking to me, I think I really upset the person speaking to me as I had to keep asking for them to slow down and repeat what they said - I did this politely though 'sorry I didn't catch that' or 'please repeat that bit' because I genuinely couldn't understand a lot of what was being said!
He would slow down the first few words of the sentence but then unconsciously speed up with a long sentence so I lost half of what he said.
He seemed to be getting increasingly annoyed with me and at one point I was asked if I had hearing problems, which I don't and replied that I don't but was really struggling to understand the accent, and apologised - again. He then snapped he was speaking English to me and I was just being racist! At this point I put the phone down because I panicked!
Have I been unintentionally racist here? I want to apologise if I have because I genuinely couldn't understand what was being said to me but I never ever intended anything like that!

OP posts:

stonecircle · 06/05/2017 23:23

Of course you weren't being racist. If you can't understand someone what's the alternative to telling them so apologetically?

WellErrr · 06/05/2017 23:24

No you weren't. He wasn't speaking fluent enough Englishfor you to understand.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 06/05/2017 23:25

No you were not be racist. Intentionally or unintentionally. If you didn't understand. You didn't understand.
I think this person behaved very very unprofessionally tbh.

peukpokicuzo · 06/05/2017 23:25

I don't think you were being racist.
I have been known to claim to have hearing difficulties in such situations.

OwlinaTree · 06/05/2017 23:26

No I don't think it was racist. I went to Newcastle for Dh's work and struggled to understand some of the people I spoke to because they had such strong geordie accents. That doesn't make me racist, it makes me unfamiliar with that accent.

Feel for you op, it's so embarrassing when this happens.

4sausages · 06/05/2017 23:26

I don't think you were racist and in that situation I'd have put the phone down too. If someone with a strong accent phones from a call centre (with background noise) and probably using a headset (which creates even more noise) it's no surprise that you can't understand them. I've had calls like this too and I sympathise. Don't feel guilty.

Ohmyfuck · 06/05/2017 23:27

No. You were not. Sometimes I can't hear accents clearly, it's just a fact, nothing racist. My ex-father-in-law had a strong Scottish accent and a lot of the time I couldn't make out what he was saying. That doesn't mean I hate the Scots! X

Original poster

Changedmehandle · 06/05/2017 23:27

Thanks, I think he got the impression that I was just being awkward about it. Maybe the guy was just having a bad day!

OP posts:

sonjadog · 06/05/2017 23:27

It depends on how thick his accent was and which accent it was. Which no-one here can evaluate.

PuddleTrouble · 06/05/2017 23:28

No, you weren't.
I had a colleague say once " I'm not racist but.... I just really struggle to understand him" (about another colleague with a strong European accent). I just thought how could you possibly think that would be considered racist?

kali110 · 06/05/2017 23:30

No, not at all.

TooFew · 06/05/2017 23:30

It's notoriously difficult to understand different accents and dialects on the phone. This has bugger all to do with race...he's just being bloody rude!

WorraLiberty · 06/05/2017 23:33

Of course you weren't being racist.

It is very awkward though when you can't understand someone's accent.

I find myself repeatedly apologising, even though it's obviously no-one's fault.

Flopjustwantscoffee · 06/05/2017 23:37

Not racist. There is an issue where people with certain accents find people mentally switch of, and don't even try to understand them if you see what I mean. I am sure that can be very frustrating. However, it sounds like in your case you were trying really really hard to understand him so nope not racist.

EveningShadows · 06/05/2017 23:43

I worked in an office in Leeds once for a few weeks - I couldn't understand a single word the two ladies in the office said to me despite all 3 of us being English.

Not racism but excruciatingly embarrassing

Italiangreyhound · 06/05/2017 23:45

Changedmehandle of course you were not racist, you could not understand him. He should not have got angry with you.

scottishdiem · 06/05/2017 23:51

Not being racist but sometimes you do need to have strong listening skills. I have not long moved to Dublin from Edinburgh and whilst the Dublin accent is fine, some of the more, um, rural accents are very challenging. Got on the bus on Friday and sat on front of two old ladies. It took about 15 mins to work out what they were saying and it was not a foreign language. I also work with Irish Travellers and that is interesting, Not much use for a phone call admittedly but you werent being racist by asking for them to slow down and enunciate clearly.

NotTheQueen · 06/05/2017 23:52

Definitely not!

I'm a New Zealander, and once got highly insulted by a Barclays CS rep in India informing me I don't speak English - and refusing to believe me when I told him English was my first language

Automated voice menus crash and burn with me, and my manager has admitted she can struggle to understand me unless she concentrates. Lesson for me is I need to speak slowly and clearly, but that's my problem not those I'm speaking with...

So don't beat yourself up!

HashiAsLarry · 06/05/2017 23:56

Not being able to understand someone isn't racist in itself. There's someone from my home town I know very well but can't understand - same race and same accent - but he doesn't enunciate well. Some people struggle with me because I talk at a fast pace, which causes issues with my foreign friends especially though I've never considered them racist because of it.

SabineUndine · 07/05/2017 00:14

No you weren't being racist. I am deaf and have trouble with accents on the phone. If someone doesn't slow down when I've explained and asked them to, they're disablist.

ErrolTheDragon · 07/05/2017 00:25

Nope. I lived in the US for a while, and sometimes came across people who couldn't understand me - I don't have a particularly strong accent in UK English terms.

melj1213 · 07/05/2017 00:36

Not at all racist - I have issues with filtering out ambient noise, I really struggle to hear people if there's a lot of background noise, it's not a great phone line and then add an accent into the mix and I am never going to come out of this situation well.

I know I'm not the only one as I often have to call our store's customer service centre and I often struggle to understand the reps if they have a strong accent and if I hand the phone to customers (as they have to confirm account details etc) they often say the same thing, especially if they are reading from a set script so their speech pattern may not be quite "normal", making it harder to "translate" when you also have to take that into account.

I work in a supermarket and I struggle to understand people standing a couple of feet away from me if it's a particularly busy day and there's loads of people around so it's just too loud for me to pick up a specific person talking from the general "buzz". The main difference there, is that I can watch their face/lips to help me understand what they're saying whereas on the phone you don't have that luxury.

peukpokicuzo · 07/05/2017 08:35

I expect that call centre workers from the Indian subcontinent regularly do have to deal with racism from people they speak to though. OP was not being unreasonable but if the call centre worker had been dealing with racism in earlier phonecalls that day they might have been a bit more sensitive. Maybe OP got the retort that the call centre worker wished they had used on an earlier bastard.

I used to recruit call centre workers and needed to ensure that applicants had a very high standard of spoken English. Applicants from the Indian subcontinent area would usually complete their application forms ticking the box to say that English is their first language - and this was true because English is an official language in many countries that were formerly British colonies and they grew up speaking English from birth. However, unfortunately being completely fluent in Indian English is not the same as being readily understandable by people who aren't used to decoding that dialect of English.

peukpokicuzo · 07/05/2017 08:36

speaking English from birth - umm obviously not actually. You know what I mean though.

FrancisCrawford · 07/05/2017 08:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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