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120 sats \ 10 replies \ @optimism 15h \ parent \ on: The Problem With Being “Too Nice” at Work mostly_harmless
No, I don't think it explains much, at all. I think it explains something about the speaker's insecurities. I think that if race is on your mind a lot, that your anxieties will be about race. But if you have some other trauma, then that will be what your anxieties will be about. So I don't think that this has anything to do with race, but with insecurity.
All people of all races have insecurities.
There's a reason people who aren't the majority race often have race top of mind.
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Maybe you should ask someone who's experienced it.
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Sure. It's useful to consider the difference when the minority status is noticeable only after conversation and intimate contact (many religious ones; sexual ones; cultural ones) vs when it's immediately noticeable to anyone in visual range, but any difference can lead to different affordances in interaction.
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But to be fair, @optimism also has a point.
These insecurities aren’t limited to race, since, as he mentioned, every race everyone has insecurities, which might also come from fear of losing your job, and we don’t want to accidentally cause a conflict, so we tend to overcorrect for niceness.
But since race is immediately obvious to anyone, I think everyone has experience with this “anxious niceness” in that context, which is why the talk focused on that.
Thinking more about this, this topic also seems very related to the second season of The Rehearsal about aviation safety (first officer being too nice / not assertive enough even though the captain is obviously about to kill everyone on board).
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If you've ever lived in a very religious town where you're one of the few not showing up for worship, it's also very obvious. Or in general if you're a stranger in a smaller community. And you'll feel it too. I've been in those situations too. Can't speak to gender or sexuality discrimination much but I figure they're the same, especially if we're talking about the place you live.
I get what you mean though, but I'm asking questions because race is probably the most abused characteristic to explain social phenomena.
Also, I don't think that race differences is why US service workers are overtly nice to you. Comforting small-talk is a cultural thing, I'd assume that it is originated both by a shared principle (being excellent) and by the dependency on gratuity, but I can very well be wrong about that because I've never worked in the service industry in the US.