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
