Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that all because there are other black women in the room ...

118 replies

Asana · 12/11/2009 20:21

... does not automatically mean that we know each other/came together?

I was at a baby playgroup today and arrived later than usual. There were two other black women in the room with their children. After a few minutes, one of the organisers came up to me and said that my friend had been asking about the group/how it works etc. I told her that I wasn't sure whom she was referring to, given that I didn't know anyone there this week. She then said to me, "Oh, I mean your friend over there. Didn't you arrive together?" When I told her we didn't as I had only just arrived, she said that she thought I and the two other women had come in together and knew each other. It later transpired that the other two women didn't know each other either, nor had they arrived at the same time and, up until that point, none of us had so much as uttered a word to each other. This leads me to wonder why oh why she automatically assumed that we were friends.

At an 02 shop last week, all the sales reps were sitting down with customers, so I decided to patiently wait in line. Sitting at the desk in front of me were a male sales rep and a female customer, who was black. A woman came into the shop with her daughter and we got to talking (usual random chat about the weather etc). When the male sales rep in front of me finished with his customer, he went to the main desk and asked who was next. The woman went straight to the desk and started asking him about the mobile phone deals they were currently advertising. I spoke up and told her that I was first and had been waiting for some time. As she didn't seem to hear me, her daughter re-iterated what I'd just said. She looked back at me and said, "Oh, I thought you were with the lady that just left. I'll be done soon." And she proceeded to turn around and continue her conversation with the rep.

This happens more times than I would care to admit and it really gets my goat. AIBU to be annoyed at these assumptions and say to people that do this (with a sardonic raised eyebrow like so ), "Not all black people know each other or are directly related, you know ..." ?

OP posts:
MamaLazarou · 13/11/2009 15:06

YABU. Croydon is in Surrey, not London.

mabh · 13/11/2009 15:13

Cripes!

I get it too. My 'point of difference'? I have red hair. Ergo related to all redheads.

Maybe we should just feel sorry for the boring 'majority'. They're clearly short-sighted.

CleverCircusFlea · 13/11/2009 15:37

What a disgusting behaviour!

I get similar thing when i mention that i'm polish. "Ooh, i know somebody from Poland, her/his name is blah-blah, do you know them? No? How about so-and-so? No?" At that point i feel like the person i'm talking to is starting to doubt whether i actually am from Poland, because if i was, i'd surely know blah-blah and so-and-so!

ladylush · 13/11/2009 16:17

Croydon is in Surrey but still classed as Greater London

Original poster
Asana · 13/11/2009 18:03

I knew IWNBU. I'm sure neither person referred to in my original post meant any harm by it, but this happens so many times, usually from people who should know better. To my fellow Croydonites, I won't name and shame as, other than that one incident, I really quite like taking my DS to this particular babygroup I have had a great time giggling at the multitude of stories on here though

I promise if it happens again, I will draw the offender's attention to how silly they're being. Now have to practise raising just the one eyebrow ...

OP posts:
MrsMerryHenry · 13/11/2009 18:05

Oh, god this thread takes me back to my schooldays where my white schoolfriends would assume that every black child in the school (there were very few of us) was related. "Is that your cousin? Your sister? Your bruvva?"

Pillocks.

Asana, next time just slap 'em.

MrsMerryHenry · 13/11/2009 18:11

Just recalled a story told by the gorgeous Adrian Lester. He was once at a dinner with a bunch of fellow actors when one of the party said to him: "Adrian, what does the black community think of Ainsley Harriot?"

His response was:

(think he was more at the idea of being thought of as a spokesman for a uniform black community than at the very idea of Ainsley Harriot...although you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the latter! )

Summerdreaming · 13/11/2009 18:16

Is it a failing of human nature to need to group everyone?

Many years ago, I worked for ASDA, along with the rest of their massive payrol members, so it began.... Couldn't get through meeting a particular relative without him patting his own bottom at me! He was 60+ year old uncle & it really didn't suit him. What made it worse was that he would then go on to ask if I knew so and so from his local store. He lives nearly 200 miles from me and the company employ thousands, but each time I saw him he went through this routine. Should have moved to work for Phones 4 U & watched him try to keep up with that one!

Oh and yes, often find elderly mothers of red-haired children being strangely drawn to me as if I am their long-lost child!

thumbwitch · 13/11/2009 18:23

Am not at this because it is so common - and it is not all about racial grouping either.

I have been at parties where people find out what my job is and then say "oh you must meet so-and-so, she's a therapist too!" yes, because I really want to talk about work at a party, don't I.

On a lighter note (perhaps) - I went to an Indian restaurant with my DH and an Indian friend - talking to the waiter, we let my friend explain what we were after so she started talking to him in Bengali (appropriate for the restaurant) - we had to laugh (later, all of us) when he apologised and said, "Lady, I am sorry, I do not understand - I am from Woking!"

thumbwitch · 13/11/2009 18:26

Sorry, meant to say to the OP that the woman in the queue was unspeakably rude and should have apologised and stepped aside once she knew she had queue-jumped - but that would involve manners, an ever-decreasing commodity these days.

SolidGoldBangers · 13/11/2009 18:39

I'm hoping it wasn't our fave playgroup (as was) but then that is a very multi-cultural one anyway - meets in a scout hut near Ikea?

Going back to the general subject, I do think sometimes it's silly wittering rather than racism eg conversational gap-filling from people who are not the most socially gifted. For instance, the number of people who used to tell me, when I was working in my grandad's shop, how much I looked like my mum. Thing is, I'm adopted and actually don't look that much like my mum, who is petite with olive-toned skin...

PacificDogwood · 13/11/2009 20:30

SGB, I think you are right: people see what they expect to see.
One of my cousins was adopted as a tiny baby and when my uncle pushed him in his pram (quite unusual for a man to push a pram 40 years ago..), lots of people told him how much his son looked like him . As grown people they did not look anything alike (think tall and skinny, and shorter and round), but had brown eyes and dark hair, and that was enough for strangers to declare a "family resemblance".

chegirl · 13/11/2009 20:36

My lovely dad asked my OH if 'he could moonwalk' when he first met him

Luckily OH took it all in good part and gave it a go

dorisbonkers · 13/11/2009 20:40

Hahaha. Like the scene in Curb Your Enthuiasm where Larry David stops someone in a wheelchair in his date's neighbourhood (she's also uses a wheelchair) asking if she knows her.

lollopops · 13/11/2009 22:29

When I went away with my boyfriend for the weekend, we were sat in the beer garden with his dad and this old lady came up to me and asked me where I could get yams from around here, as she was making some sort of (insert animal) curry. I tried explaining to her that I infact, lived nearly 200 miles away but she replied with 'So you don't know anywhere'?

It was my boyfriend and his father that pointed her to the nearest direction of the 'yam shop'. We were all in stitches

MrsMerryHenry · 14/11/2009 20:55

lollopops, you should be ashamed of yourself. You should have memorised the exact location of every yam shop across the country so that you could represent the black community in such a situation as that. You ain't no sista.

alisara · 02/04/2010 10:23

Couldnt read and run!

I am from Belfast and I am mixed race.

The fav word in Belfast to refer to me is coloured. How long have you lived here - when i have been talking to them with a really broad belfast accent.

Going into a shop and being asked if i can sing, I ask why and the assistant said well because you are from the carribean - i am not from the carribean i am part west african and part irish.

A colleague saying try this food my neighbour who is like you eats it.

Another colleague saying that her skin is like a black persons, I say what is a black persons skin like, what exactly do you mean..... needless to say i do not work there any longer

Asked if i am my dd nanny/cm - my dd is white

In a second hand shop last year, where the assistant hands me a note with the price on, i asked why i already know the price - she said you're not from this country and dont understand!

It goes on and on and on .......... and as i live in belfast and with the troubles etc some people say was your father a soldier WHAT i say no an accountant

When i shop with my mum, people ask her about her friend this hurts i am her daughter!!!

And yes, they think every black person is a relation and that i am a great singer, dancer and sportswoman.........

alisara · 02/04/2010 10:24

Oh yes, and is your hair real

TotalChaos · 02/04/2010 10:37

yanbu, even if well-meant it must be so bloody irritating. rofl at them expecting you to be so appreciate of the carribean singer on the cd.

boiledeggandsoldiers · 02/04/2010 10:37

alisara

I think it is as SGB says, "silly wittering rather than racism eg conversational gap-filling from people who are not the most socially gifted"

JaneS · 02/04/2010 12:26

YANBU.

Loving the 'do you know Jock from Glasgow' further up the thread though. .

My DP is Russian, and I can predict that 90% of strangers who find this out will make on of these three responses:

  1. Ooh, do you struggle to talk to him because you speak different languages? (Yes, terribly, we often resort to sign language, it's how we got together in the first place).

  2. Does he know Vladimir Putin?

  3. I knew a Russian lady who married an English guy for his passport. Does he know her?

DP also particularly enjoys being told, 'Ooh, you don't sound very Russian, are you sure?'

Bucharest · 02/04/2010 12:31

The school I work at phoned me yesterday (3 times) certain they were calling the other Brit who works there (and who I have met twice in my entire life) Obviously we must live together and share a phone what with us both being born in the same place....

I'm also from Nottingham and am constantly being asked what the weather/Easter/Christmas is like in either London or New York. Or indeed, if being British, means I am suddenly some kind of employment agency and can find all their kids jobs in the City.

StrictlyKatty · 02/04/2010 12:34

DH's Dad is from a Med country, I got asked recently if I knew someone else who was from the same country (we were in a whole different country at the time)... I was about to do my total outrage face and say not everyone knows everyone you know, there are more than 6 of them...

Then I realised they had asked about my FIL's best friend, so I had to say yes. Now I'm pretty sure they still think everyone from that country knows everyone else!

smugaboo · 02/04/2010 12:40

When I was working in a hotel in Devon a million moons ago, a customer asked me if I knew his cousin in Sydney (where I am from). Blow me down, it turns out that I did! She is a good friend on my sisters. I mean Sydney has millions of people in it!!! Craaaazy world.

said · 02/04/2010 12:41

We met some Americans in Paris once who perked up when we said we were from Liverpool. They started the "Do you know xxx?" thing. And we did!