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.

I had a conversation with a Chinese colleague recently about Chinese names. He speaks Mandarin (I think) and said that in China some names are written identically but there are 5 or 6 different ways to pronounce them. (admittedly he then gave an example and I couldn't tell them difference between some of the different pronunciations, so I think it might be very subtle to an unpractised ear).

Thought it was interesting though.

The line manager is poison but I was genuinely concerned about being viewed as a racist.

I have an indirect manager who does exactly what you describe. It's a power thing. Everyone affected by her poison has different strategies but the two that work best are:

1. Total grey rock- ignore and walk off from any attempt to do stuff like this.

1. Total war- aggressive reactions involving higher ups each time she pulls a stunt until she just leaves that person alone.

Everyone who tries something in between tends to get grief over and over again.

@Teaandcrisps blimey you are so woke I'd be surprised if you ever sleep.

There is very very often smoke without fire.

There are some really creative back story writers on here. Making stuff up about how the op may or may not have done this that and the other. The op explained that she has a strong Glaswegian accent and might struggle to pronounce the name. I can't possibly see how apologising in advance for a possible mispronunciation of an unfamiliar name can be racist.

I’m not creating a back story. It’s just that it’s such a very strange thing for the line manager to say that it’s worth the OP having a think just to check that she didn’t sound as if she was mocking.

Was I being racist? (Probably yes)
I'm not a racist but...(yes - yes you are)
I don't mean to sound racist but...(well yes you do)

Bored.

I'm British and have an English name, but grew up in another country. My name was constantly mispronounced. I definitely preferred people who apologised for mispronunciation than people who just assumed they must have got it right

It's also got nothing to do with race. I expect most people called Maciej are white and most people called Hye-kyo aren't, but I had to check the pronunciation of both names the first time I came across them.

Teaandcrisps - no idea how to bold names...

It was a uni exam board with more than 500 students being assigned a degree classification. Only myself and 4 others, all native English speakers, were present. I deal with non Scottish and rUK students on a daily basis (and in fact there are growing numbers of foreign and chinese students staudying at uni these days).

As noted in the OP i rhymed off each name on the list eg Anne Smith first class, Mohammed Iqbal first class etc etc. When I came to the particular student I said " apologies for any mispronounication" XY 2:1.

In future I will just attempt my best pronounciation (which will sound Glaswegian anyway... probably racist...) and forget politeness of trying to get the correct pronounciation.

Of course that isn't racist.

By the way I have a very strong Glaswegian accent, I attempted to pronounce the Chinese name Chinese names are particularly difficult - I speak Mandarin Chinese, the mess that even Radio 4 and TV news presenters make of "Huawei" on a regular basis shows how difficult it is!

Your manager is a twat. Irish names I find so hard to know how to pronounce from spelling, does that make me a racist????!

Nah, names with certain accents are hard to pronounce.
I have a Brazilian friend who used to live in the UK. Her parents at the time couldn’t pronounce my name properly (and it’s really common like Amy, Jane, Karen etc). Now she is back in Brazil full time and has redeveloped the accent she also can’t easily pronounce my name

I’m really bad with names and with pronouncing them (it’s the same with Pacific Ocean and words like that). I think some people in general just aren’t as good as others

You say you were discussing each person, presumably whether you were being racist depends what you were saying about the person.

Floraloctopus

Student x first class
Student y 2:1
Student z 2:1

No discussion of individuals, names only.

How ridiculous. It’s not racist to apologise in advance for mispronunciation. You weren’t being inappropriate. Your manager is a dick.

Suggest your manager looks up the Oxford dictonary defintion of the word. I got pulled upon that a while ago and what I wrote was not racist at all!.

A person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.

It completely depends on the way you asked the question. If you laughed when asking (which some people do when self-conscious) then your line manager may have thought you sounded mocking.

We weren’t there, so we can’t hear the nuances, therefore we really can’t answer your question. But something obviously riled your boss so it might be worth asking him?

I can't pronounce my OH's name - luckily he doesn't hold it against me

Not racist at all.

My line of work involves communicating with foreign nationals and if I had to reprimand my staff every time they mis-pronounced a name or asking how to pronounce it I wouldn't have any staff left.

Manager is being ridiculous.

It’s fascinating how many mumsnetters were in the room when this happened, isn’t it!

Racial bias in selection processes is a problem and illegal, so if I was your manager I would be questioning your ability to act appropriately and within company guidelines hence why you were quite rightly brought up on this.

You were presumably in a professional environment? I would send you straight on training.

You sound inexperienced and unprofessional OP.

And yet here we all are, just giving an opinion on OP's the question. 🙄

I'd say no.

An example of people who I think were being racist were colleagues who couldn't pronounce a name despite working with the person for now several weeks and having had it explained several times because it was 'so hard'. It was always the brown peoples names that were 'so hard'.

A one off 'I will try to pronounce this correctly' - no.

Not at all. What was the name?

My friend moved to the UK as a young boy (8yo) to go to a fancy boarding school. He has a very traditional, Nigerian name that is quite long (though I wouldn't say hard to pronounce as it's pretty much 'say what you see')
Well his boarding house master didn't even attempt it and said

"We'll call you Fred"

Poor sod.
It stuck too, he's now known as Fred

TeaAndCrisps
You were presumably in a professional environment? I would send you straight on training.

You sound inexperienced and unprofessional OP.

Am genuinely interested what OP should have done when being asked to read out a list of names, one of which she wasn't sure how to pronounce? What would you have done for example?