The following was written by me in December of 2018 after reading about the gentleman that ordered from a popular coffee chain and the barista changed the name on his order. In light of the current climate, I felt I needed to share it on my blog.
Lots of disagreement about the Chang instead of John on the coffee cup. Some people just don’t see what the big deal is. Reminded me of a situation my daughter had last year. A friend made a naive comment about how the costumes they were wearing looked Chinese so at the end of the performance, they should throw fortune cookies into the audience. My daughter (the only person of Chinese decent in the room) expressed disapproval of the comment to which someone else defended with, “She was only kidding.” First let me say that knowing both of the individuals, neither meant harm by their comments HOWEVER, let me try to enlighten those that may be reading and say, “Yeah, your daughter shouldn’t be so sensitive.” Let’s say the costumes have Hispanic hints, would it have been ok for my daughter to say that they should toss tortillas into the audience? …Or if they were wearing a beret, how would someone of French origin feel if she said they should throw french fries into the crowd. Oh, c’mon you say, french fries aren’t even french. Well, did you know that Fortune Cookies were created in America? So then, how to come to a concensus or simply diffuse the situation? If you’ve offended someone, even if it was inadvertently; instead of defending your actions, an apology showing empathy might help… Especially if that person’s ethnicity differs from your own and the comment was related to “who they are”… hmmm, think on that one for a second… For example, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how that sounded and I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Or, if you really don’t see why they are upset, maybe, “I would never intentionally say something hurtful, please help me understand how what I said that was inappropriate so I can learn from it.” Sensitivity to others is an undervalued trait…