Accused of racism by client

[stample]

I work and deal with clients daily, I spoke to a regular client being polite and civil, and they too were civil back only to get home and email my manager saying I had implied a racist remark towards them. My manager knows this was not the case and responded back. For reference I am white with black children and the client was black (they wouldn’t know anything about my personal life)
AIBU to mention this when I next see them, obviously apologise if they thought what I said was racist and then to say my family are black…

No, you've assumed that admitting you might have caused offense means that you have to issue a grovelling apology. The truth is that actually, further interactions with the person you harmed is often not appropriate or wanted by the victim. The fact that you hurt someone and CAN'T apologise is something you have to live with. You have to sit with the discomfort of inadvertently causing harm through racism.

Other times you just reflect on how you can avoid such an incident. I have an example when someone spoke about offense being caused by "good morning" as someone had a tragic day. I wouldn't feel I'd did something wrong by saying good morning, but I may reflect and decide to adjust my greeting to "morning" to avoid further incidents, if not to avoid offense.

It's okay to be wrong. It doesn't make you a terrible person. Believing you can never be wrong is more likely to make you a terrible person.

I hate to say it, but this poster seems to have been brainwashed.

Just because theories are current, such as critical race theory, it doesn't make them factual.

There's balance to be had in life. Equality and fairness for all is quite simple to get right if you're a decent human being. You don't need that level of analysis or faux "depth". Repeating myself: the right answer Is often the obvious one. Not some theory based one that you've pretzeled yourself trying to extricate.

Fucking hell. You need to stop staring out of your window with glassy eyes , sucking a pencil. I'm sorry but you've drank some kool aid here.

So is your position that the OP should have lied about the watermelon being eaten? Or maybe refused to allow the client to eat it in the first place?

You often don't though. Sometimes the statement is obviously racist, but the person is equally adamant that it isn't. I can think of something that occurred at work actually where a staff member wouldn't accept that stereotyping people based on their cultural background is always prejudiced, even if what you're saying matches your anecdotal experiences.

They were basically saying that a certain subset of women always have a certain type of labour and birth (a very high vaginal birth rate basically) and it was important we address that the research actually shows that this group of women have the same range of outcomes as everyone else, except that their babies have a higher rate of admission to NICU (probably because people think they are fine to give birth without intervention so ignore fetal distress).

Is what they're saying obviously racist? No. They were actually saying that they are model birthers and it was intended to be a positive comment. Nonetheless, it's stereotyping women which birth prevents us giving holistic care and puts people in clinical danger.

I haven’t responded to the post because l stopped engaging with it at the words ‘harmed’ and ‘victim’. Even for MN this is so deeply entrenched in virtue signalling as to be shocking.

Um, that's not prejudiced, if it's true.

It's a statistical generalization about a population.

Those are quite important in health care.

No, I explained earlier why the family might have the beliefs that they do.

• their person doesn't like watermelon (why were they eating it?)

• they may question if they actually ate anything at all, and the person just guessed that watermelon is something that sounds realistic (and that assumption could stem in racism)

I strongly believe that there are other reasons the family are suspicious of the care received generally. Not specifically from the OP.

It's not true. It's based on the fact that women from this group are often left with fetal distress to labour until they have a vaginal birth. Their babies then are more likely to go to NICU.

So what was happening is that practitioners were doing things like. Ignoring that the fetal monitor is showing distress in the baby, because they believed they'd go onto give birth anyway without the need for assistance or a cesarean. Some babies were left with lifelong injuries or died.

These women may be more likely to labour "like a trooper", challenge the staff less frequently and not show the fear and pain they experience for more complex cultural reasons.

They don't need fewer caesareans than anyone else, we just don't give them the ones they need.

The OP hasn't said or done anything racist and has no reason to apologize.

But of course it's possible to inadvertently say something that is racist, sexist, ableist or otherwise prejudiced.

I have, myself, used a term that is not generally considered offensive in the UK, but is widely considered offensive where I live now (which I didn't know at the time). When I used it, it drew a shocked reaction: I asked why and it was explained to me that its an offensice term. I said sorry, and that I had no idea as it's a fairly commonly used term in the UK, and that was that. I now avoid using the word. None of this was a big deal, to me, and didn't feature the kind of groveling apologies you've described in previous posts.

Again, I don't think this is necessary in the OP's case because she was just accurately describing something factual that happened, as required by her job.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype

Could it be this? I watched a TV documentary a few weeks ago and it brought it to mind.

So you are basically making things up about the OP based on the idea that she must be in the wrong, and these other people correct, because they are black.

That seems a little racist.

Is that your interpretation, or is it your assumption? Because it very much seems like you make a lot of assumptions about why people do things.

Because it isn't impossible that one cultural or ethnic group could in fact need fewer cesareans than another, it wouldn't be the first instance of real medical differences between groups.

Even if it were in fact the case that the reason was that fetal distress was being ignored, someone not knowing that was the reason could reasonably have a different hypothesis about the discrepancy.

So are your children adopted then?

I assume the client meant that they hadn't eaten any watermelon (as they don't like it), so were inferring that OP was making a (racist) point by 'incorrrectly' noting that particular food

Well if said person was eating watermelon, they were eating watermelon. You’re not bloody lying so what are you meant to apologise for?

What an odd comment to make.

I think it was supposed to make her sound superior

No-one is questioning that in the circumstances you describe there would be a need to acknowledge, understand and learn, so as to avoid using a term that you now know to be genuinely considered racist. That’s not the issue.

It’s the notion that racism encompasses a huge range of words and phrases which are seemingly innocent, but which have obscure racist connotations, and that even when the perceived racism is so obscure as to be a phrase or word in everyday use, and said in the context of the modern meaning, the fact that it has caused offence is paramount and makes the person who used the term a racist by default. Which is utter nonsense and designed to force people to apologise even though there was no intent to offend and they have done nothing wrong.

I assumed the same thing, but the poster you quoted has spent much of the thread making the most ridiculous reaches to try to prove that the OP was racist and that there must be more to the incident otherwise the client wouldn’t have escalated. My own opinion is that if the client was so offended by the reference to watermelon they would naturally have mentioned it to the OP and pointed out why they were offended. The fact that they didn’t say a word at the time and later escalated it to her employer suggests something else entirely.

The OP’s partner is black. Her children are mixed race. Am l missing something here ?

It’s a lot racist. The poster is also guilty of the unconscious bias of which she is accusing others.

Yes. They assumed that's what they would have eaten..

It's clear because their babies have more entries to NICU due to being born in a poor condition. The staff member was saying "oh isn't it great that we don't have to give X women caesareans". When actually we just don't give them when they are needed as we think they'll probably "deliver vaginally in theatre" anyway.

Didn't say it was about the OP, in fact, I specifically stated that it probably wasn't. But there would be thousands of reasons why any family using carers would be anxious about their care at the moment, and specifically a non-white family would have racism as an additional factor to worry about when it comes to substandard care.

Please do read posts a few times before responding to make sure you truly understand them or conversation with you becomes boring.