Angelia Vernon Menchan

Angelia Vernon Menchan is an author, publisher and public speaker who owns two publishing companies, MAMM Productions and Honorable Menchan Media. Mrs. Menchan is also a Budget Officer and former Job Corps Counselor. To date she has published twenty-three books of her own work, both fiction and non-fiction and more than eighty ebook novellas on amazon.com. You can access her bibliography on www.amazon.com search words: Angelia Vernon Menchan




Contact information:
Website: http://acvermen.blogspot.com
Email: acvermen@yahoo.com
Phone numbers: 904 714 2272 904 303 2679

Monday, April 11, 2011

UMMM, EXCUSE ME!

Sometimes I am shocked by the things people feel they have the right to say or ask. Today I was walking from the bank and this woman I didn’t know from a can of paint asked, “Is that yo real hair, if so is you mixed or something and where you from?” Excuse me?

“Well, I’m just axing because the back is so short I know you dii’nt have a curl in there, so is it?”

Not being in a gracious frame of mind, I smiled and got in my car. Driving away I was thinking of yesterday when a friend told me about moving to a new city and being questioned about where she was from, as if she had moved from Mars, not just another state. And really dumb, insulting questions, such as I thought people from there did such and such. Excuse Me?

To top it all off, this morning I read a blog on mybrownbaby that mentioned an older woman telling a young mother that her biracial child was a half-breed. Excuse me?

Are these people serious, has the world become such that we feel we can ask total strangers anything and expect them to answer. In many cases, the questions or statements are downright insulting. Or is it that we live in such a culture where we tell so much of our business on social networks and the like that we feel we can say or ask any old thing, even face-to-face?

I knew that when I became a writer people would want to know certain things and would ask all kinds of questions and I was prepared for that. However, I am never prepared when asked a question by a complete stranger who hasn’t even bothered saying, “Hello, how are you, go to heck, or something?”

I must confess I am not all that comfortable with being grilled about intimate things with people I know. I am of the mindset that anything needed to know will be told. I don’t grill people or ask a whole bunch of questions. I have discovered that you can learn so much more by being quiet and observing. And frankly, I could care less about whether someone’s hair is real or not. And I certainly would never offer up a skewered view of a child’s racial identity or indicate to someone that I thought all people from a certain area were a certain way.

Also, I don’t care to be grilled about other folks business. This morning a co-worker came to my door, I could see from the look on her face she was ready to get gossipy.

“Umm, Angelia, do you know why so and so is going to be off so long. They are on the calendar for weeks.”

“No.”

“Oh, Okay, I just thought you might know since everything is signed off on by you.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“Hmmph.”

Hmmph indeed, as I said before if people want you to know something they will tell you, if they don’t they won’t. And I am going to go out on a limb and say that no one appreciates being accosted by a total stranger and asked a bunch of asinine questions or hear a bunch of even more asinine opinions. Think what you want but keep it to yourself.

Be BLESSED!
Angelia
www.angeliamenchan.com

7 comments:

Shelia G said...

People are something else is all I can say.

What I'm finding out too that even when you post a thought on one of the social networks, folks automatically think you're talking about yourself and even when you tell them you're aren't, that it's just a general thought, they don't believe you.

The best way to handle people who are bold enough to ask those questions is to be bold enough to ignore them or give them a response they really weren't expecting. :)

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Shelia,
as my grandma used to say, People are as bold as brass and just as tarnished.

angelia

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with all you said you Angelia!

The other thing that just makes me want to slap the blood out of people is, walking up to a complete stranger who is pregnant and touch/rub their belly!


Janice

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Janice,

Ugh, I didnt like that either, too familiar...

angelia

Shai said...

This right here >>> "I must confess I am not all that comfortable with being grilled about intimate things with people I know."

I have had folks who know me come out and make such insulting comments, give crazy unsolicited advice based on what they "assumed" and just being downright noisy. Ugh!

I have had strangers say stuff where I just stared. And some at like they needed to get it off their chest. SMH.

Dera Williams said...

It amazes me too the things people walk up to you and say. And they are not stuttering. I just shake my head at their ignorance.

Linda Chavis said...

Folks have been doing this to me my entire life...