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.

OTOH we have a "Chinese Alan" at work whose name is not Alan or anything like Alan, but is unpronounceable to the average English tongue. He appears to find our collective incompetence hilarious and be unphased“
Blimey. Not a single hint or racism in this company!

I had a Chinese housemate with an English name, his parents were from Hong Kong and he said it was usual for children to get a Chinese and an English name.

I also once worked with a 'Sam', after I'd known him a while I found out it wasn't his name, it was short for his nickname from school, ie Sambo. I was horrified, he thought it was funny.

I have an unusual name that is always mispronounced, but I'm English born and bred so it's hardly a matter of racism if someone doesn't get it right.

However, when I was younger and very self conscious, I would have felt a bit embarrassed that you made a comment by apologising, as it draws more attention. I would have preferred you just to say it (even wrongly) and move on.

“I also once worked with a 'Sam', after I'd known him a while I found out it wasn't his name, it was short for his nickname from school, ie Sambo. I was horrified, he thought it was funny.”

Laughter is often a defence mechanism. See also Chinese Alan. He apparently finds that funny too.

Unless your manager is prepared to send you on a foreign language course for every name you may ever encounter, I think it is unreasonable to expect you to find the correct pronunciation. Apologising for the fact you may not get it correct is good manners. Racism is implying that someone is inferior in some way due to their race. You apologised for perhaps not getting a name correct, which drew attention to the race without suggesting anyone was superior or inferior. Your manager needs to get a grip!

I've just remembered this! I worked in a shop when I was a student and the entire staff was white (very large shop without about 40 employees). They hired an Indian man whose name was Shushil. Very easy to easy. If you can say 'shush' then you can say Sushil. But one of the assistant managers used to go "can you go get Sushaweee' or 'shusinky'. Like, he just made it really horrible and when he talked about staff performance, there was clearly a bias against that employee despite him being very good at the job and very well read (was a bookshop) so able to recommend books to customers easily. That was clearly racism and he used the name pronunciation to do it. What OP did is not the same.

A couple of observations:
By describing a name as ‘unusual’ or ‘hard to pronounce we are assuming that our experience is the norm and by extension most valid.

Ng is not remotely unusual as a surname amongst Vietnamese people. It is extremely common. I would describe myself as being ‘unfamiliar ‘ with it rather than the name being ‘unusual’

Likewise ‘the far east’.far from where? Who defines the norm
From where ‘far’ is measured? The preferred term now is South East Asia which describes geographically the part of the continent the country is in.

Academia is now in the teeth of wokeness, for good and bad: looking at what has happened to women in higher education wrt a view on retaining sex as a definition, rather than gender, and I would actually ask your manager to explain how to approach names with which you are unfamiliar and to be specific about what he thought not right. You could well end up labelled ‘racist’ when a constructive tip could help, or unjustly.

I would write down your account if the whole event.

OP, I work in courses at one of the Glasgow universities (our boards start next week - joy unbounded!) and this happens ALL the time. The vice dean reads out the names of each student and sometimes struggles with non-English names (including Gaelic). I'm fairly certain nobody in the room thinks they are being racist for being unsure about a pronunciation!

My own surname is always mispronounced where I live. It's not racist to mispronounce it, neither it is racist to apologise in advance if you are not sure about the pronunciation.
Your manager is ridiculous and I would complain.

No, sounds to me like your manager was being a tit
I have immigrant parents, but I was born in Britain. My surname before I got married and changed it was completely unpronounceable to anyone who doesn’t speak my parents’ native language - way too many consonants I spent my entire school career spelling it out to teachers. During my first day of Army basic training, my name was promptly shortened to a simplified nickname version.
Not once did I think anyone was a racist for not being able to pronounce my name - and majority of the time someone who wasn’t sure would either ask me how to pronounce it, or do what you did and apologise in advance if they got it wrong!

TheRedBarrows I love your comment about “unusual” vs “unfamiliar”.
That’s a great way to describe something like a surname that people from outside that country may struggle with! My maiden name is particularly “unfamiliar” to British ears!

Also the “Far East” thing gets my goat something chronic I’m mum to 2 mixed race children - their dad is the child of Thai immigrants. I’ve even had a few people describe my DCs as “oriental” And then look really puzzled when I’ve responded with “what the hell does oriental even mean?!”