So now it’s all trendy to talk about issues of race and colour and stuff.
There was an article on the radio this morning about a local conference, Bench2Business, which is aimed at “aspiring and established scientists and entrepreneurs of color”.
At one point they were talking to an entrepreneur who was ruefully pointing out how race is a distraction in his line.
It happened to me just last week when I was making a presentation to a cosmetics company…and the same thing was, gee, Bruce, what do you think about Barack Obama running for president?
-quote ripped from WHYY’s site
You could hear him shaking his head.
I wanted to reassure him that it’s not really a racial thing. It’s an idiocy-of-small-talk thing.
As someone who sounds different from everyone else around me I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been in the middle of a sentence when I’ve been interrupted by a question about my accent. It’s happened in business meetings, with friends, in the middle of a rant, at medical appointments, even on telemarketing calls (and you know how hard it is to get THEM off their script!).
I suppose it’s some kind of progress that Bruce’s black skin has descended from Big F’ing Deal to an irritating small-talking distraction.
Welcome to my world, Bruce: one where everyone will now talk to you, whether you want them to or not!