Was I being racist?

[bullywee]

In work today we were going through a list of names, discussing each person. The vast majority were English names and were easily pronouncable. There was one non-English name which was a difficult to pronounce (to me). Prior to saying this name, I said apologies for any mispronounciation and attempted to pronounce the name.

Anyway, long story short, my line manager pulled me aside after the meeting and said I was being racist because I implied it was "unpronouncable".

Was I? I was genuinely only pre apologising for any mispronounciation but not sure after the verbal bollocking I got.

No course not

Depends what the name was and your reaction

I have a French surname which nobody can pronounce without prompting! Just ignore him.

Not racist at all.

I've apologised for mispronouncing names countless times, like most people.

It depends what else you were doing, as in verbal or body language signals, or whether you've said or done anything similar in the past.

Chinese name? Not racist. The chinese language is full of different tones, very hard to learn. Some go up, some down etc. One person's pronunciation may not be another's

Your line manager is being ridiculous. I have an English name which crops up on the baby name boards a lot but I still get it pronounced incorrectly 80% of the time. People apologise and life goes on.

I once had to pronounce a name I saw written down, I had never seen it before and pronounced it using English phonetics (the origin wasn't obvious to me). Turns out it was pronounced very differently to how I said it, for example if the end was -ide it was pronounced -eeday rather than the ide in hide. I apologised very sincerely but the woman wouldn't let it drop, branded me ignorant and racist and was an arse towards me and as it turns out anyone else who got it wrong unintentionally. She didn't have many friends.

Better to apologise in advance and try your best. Better than the headteacher who mangled my daughters name in front of all her peers and their parents and just laughed hysterically whilst doing so without apologising 🤷🏻‍♀️

When i learnt Mandarin it was very difficult. I always waited for soneone to pronounce their name first so i didn't offend by mispronounciation.

Watch out for that line manager - sounds like she is looking for opportunities to find fault.
People like that can be very dangerous and will deflect any complaint about them. Crossing them could lead to bullying against you.
I can see why you would want to correct the racist claim, but it could be a very risky thing to do personally. Be careful, and think very very hard before you do it.

This reminds me of a time a friend of mine (Pakistani) called someone racist for not being able to read her name out from a list. I thought she was being a bit ott but saying that her name is very easy to pronounce and reads out phonetically exactly as it should in normal English pronunciation so she perhaps had a point. I think she felt the person reading the name out was deliberately drawing attention to.

I gave up correcting people how to pronounce my first name years ago & now even call myself the most popular way of pronouncing it. (think old fashioned North Country British pronunciation -thanks dm spent a life time spelling it! ;) ) so the man is plain daft!

Your LM sounds like she's just out to dig at you.

I had a colleague a few years ago survey a group of students prior to an assessed presentation and remark "Ooh, now I wonder which one of you could possibly be called Shaniqua ". Now that was fucking racist but she absolutely wouldn't accept it.

No, but I don't think you handled it the most inclusive way possible. In future, I would consider making a general apology at the beginning of going through the list in case you get anyone's name wrong, rather than singling out specific names. It's just as easy to get a 'Bucket pronounced Bouquet' wrong as any other name, so you might as well apologise up front, do your best, and invite corrections from anyone.

Not racist at all! I have a name that English speakers find difficult to pronounce. People often take a deep breathe when reading it out for the 1st time or make a friendly (and quite endearing) comment similar to yours. Nothing to be offended by. Stand up to your moronic boss and his misplaced accusation: he is an idiot.

ps maybe HE was being racist because of your accent (turn tables!)

Like a pp says, it depends on how you said that. It doesn’t sound like you were being racist - if you were you probably wouldn’t even be giving this a second thought. But how you sounded to others depends on context - maybe with your tone/body language you sounded dismissive of that person perhaps?

Incidentally, I’m British Chinese and all my life had no end of problems with my name. I’m proud of my name (and heritage) but how it’s been mangled by others at times has caused me embarrassment. I sometimes feel like people don’t take me as seriously as someone with a ‘standard’ Anglo Saxon name. Sometimes I tell people how to pronounce my name (it’s pronounced phonetically) but for some reason they continue with their incorrect approximation of it. It seems that’s good enough.

In professional environments I’ve heard comments along the lines of ‘oh I’m not sure if they’re from China or Japan, it’s all the same part of the world isn’t it.’

Anyway, all the above probably does not apply to you but just thought I’d share from my perspective.

I don't think you were being at all racist. Im English but with an unusual and 'non-English' name and almost every person I've ever spoken to has either mispronounced it or has asked how to pronounce it first. I don't take offence unless there are other non-verbal cues that imply said individual is making a fuss because my name isn't from the UK.

That said, if there was a Chinese person present at the time of the remark then I would say you were perhaps a little insensitive. But racist, no.

What BarbarianMum said. If it is a genuinely hard name to pronounce that's one thing. If it's just that it is "foreign" - not ok. My SIL has a 5 letter (asian) surname pronounced as spelled. But people make such a fuss over it....

No, your boss is over sensitive.

No. Your manager is an arse.

It’s borderline really - very much depends on your voice tone and body language. It’s usually quite clear by tone and body language if you were just being difficult or highlighting it for the sake of it (even if you genuinely can’t pronounce the name). If someone is picking up that you might be racist then - I’d suggest being a bit more careful with your tone and attitude!

My children have Asian or Traditionally old testament names due to. Our family mix. Folk occasionally mispronounce tj, I don't think they are racist. If they continue to, after they are told how to, I think they are ignorant.

No you weren’t racist, unless you were mocking. We’re you self-conscious at all? That leads some people to giggle, which can be grating. If neither of those things, then no, you weren’t racist.

I know it can be grating if people make deliberately heavy weather about getting your name right. My maiden name is Czech and people constantly misspelt it, in some cases even after being told constantly that they had got it wrong. It felt like it was deliberate sometimes. It used to lead to letters being put into the wrong pigeonhole at times. That was also on top of having been bullied at school because of my name.

So, it’s possible that you go on about difficult names was something he was sick of hearing and therefore he overreacted.

No smoke without a fire.

What did you actually do and say to provoke this kind of response? By implication of your post you do not encounter names/people from outside your social context so what might be a fairly straightforward name for your boss was made a meal of by yourself.

Perhaps she was offended by your inability to deal with difference? If you had done this in front of client for example, maybe this could have been a problem.

I think your boss sounds great.