BIG YES BOMB!!!!!

AutoModerator · 2025-03-30T05:00:48+00:00

Hey /u/TheresJustNoMoney, thank you for your post at /r/autism. Our rules can be found here. All approved posts get this message.

Thanks!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Ok_Security9253 · 2025-03-30T05:31:02+00:00

I read your post and there was no need for you to describe the physical appearance of the person at all - it was completely irrelevant to what you were saying. In circumstances where the information is irrelevant you should not describe someone's physical characteristics.

If you think that the person's race is relevant to what you were saying then you need to think carefully about why that is. If the person was fat, or had blonde hair, would you have thought that was relevant information?

2025-03-30T06:58:35+00:00

,

So, in general, no, but sometimes, as autistic people, we give too much information. This can be info dumping, but it can also mean giving descriptions that aren't necessary.

Reading your post, some people might feel you were associating this woman's being black with her actions. (Maybe you were; maybe you weren't; I wouldn't know.) But no doubt, people took offense and thought you were suggesting she did this because it was typical black behavior.

That would be racist, and so people who may have assumed this would have been very upset.

In general, when expressing a negative experience with a stranger, if mentioning the race isn't important to the narrative of what you intend to say, I would refrain from talking about race no matter what the race is.

Edit: It also didn't help that it was the only thing you mentioned about her appearance.

Routine-Bottle-7466 · 2025-03-30T05:30:43+00:00

No. Unless you think the description of being black, white, Asian, Latino, etc is a bad thing which I don't. I'm fine with people saying "the Middle Eastern lady" because I'm a lady and Middle Eastern and neither of those things are insults. When I describe people I try not to describe them by things society deems unappealing like I wouldn't say "oh you mean the guy with horrible acne."

2025-03-30T05:44:26+00:00

Everything these days seems to be the wrong thing to say.

Ok_Opportunity_9948 · 2025-03-30T05:57:26+00:00

Not at all, I do the same thing. Visual descriptions are the easiest way to identify someone clearly

AshynWraith · 2025-03-30T17:52:27+00:00

It can be appropriate but when that descriptor has absolutely zero relevance in the given context, as it does in your case, it stands out as an oddity and is typically construed as having bigoted undertones specifically because racist people will often slip extraneous mentions of race into conversation to broadcast their opinions or try to influence the opinions of others.

Let's look at a comment: "I didn't leave a tip because my waiter was glaring at everyone all night"

That's a fairly innocuous comment. One may agree or disagree with the speaker's decision but there's nothing bigoted about it.

However if that same comment specified that it was a black waiter then all of a sudden the speaker seems much less justified in their decision to not tip. It sounds like they decided not to tip because of the waiter's race and are trying to justify that decision with the waiter's glaring.

A good general rule of thumb is not to mention race unless it's relevant and necessary, and more often than one may think it's neither.

BIG YES BOMB!!!!!

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Is it really some kind of taboo faux pas to mention race while describing who somebody is?

Is it really some kind of taboo faux pas to mention race while describing who somebody is?

No comments:

Post a Comment