Thursday, March 22, 2007

Arranged weddings (for nony)

No this is not about my propensity for future progeny (?lol) but a conversation that occurred during morning rounds yesterday.

Attending: 'The more I see in life the more I think the arranged wedding folks had it right. The older people are wiser. (Turning to stare at me and saying in a singsong voice): 'I am staaaring at Frieda. Frieda was your marriage arranged?'

Frieda: (Stare of great dislike tempered by inability to truly give attending hate glare...resulting I think in a rather funny looking facial expression) Uh.....no.

Attending: 'Oh. How about your parents then?'

Frieda: (with feeling of bubbling resentment growing inside me) No.

Attending then turning to Korean resident who she insists on calling Chinese:
'And how about you?'

Korean resident, after look of great irritation: ' Um, my husband is whiter than white people.'

Attending: 'Oh, ok then.' (Pausing at looking over at me and perhaps noticing that I was hating her....hard to tell with her difficulty picking up on social cues) 'You see I am just a blunt person. Hahahahaha.'

Ha. Ha. I myself had a hard time controlling my laughter. Now there have been many other mishaps this month with my attending having to do with her preoccupation/fascination/irritation with me (Example: You Islamic folks meditate, right?). What irritates me more than people being stupid (which can only be so irritating because we are all stupid about some thing right) and then being stupid enough to ask stupid questions in an annoying way, is people who think they are actually very culturally aware and are actually making you comfortable by acknowledging you. And when that person is your attending, it is even worse. Because once you bring a power differential and stupidity together, what you end up having in some form or another is injustice.

Which made me think hard about our system for reporting any sort of prejudice in the medical work place. Why isn't there an anonymous reporting system of incidents? What mechanism is there?

la de da
Frieda

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

deep frieda
very deep
you really delved into the secret problems of our society's racist problems today
i'm very proud of you
A ++ for today

i hate those kinds of questions too. at least you haven't been asked if you speak "egyptianish" or
"hyroglyphicish"
i feel loved becuase you've been reading my blog
doha

6:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

deep frieda
very deep
you really delved into the secret problems of our society's racist problems today
i'm very proud of you
A ++ for today

i hate those kinds of questions too. at least you haven't been asked if you speak "egyptianish" or
"hyroglyphicish"
i feel loved becuase you've been reading my blog
doha

6:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you posted twice foolio.
you should always feel loved.
why do i get the feeling you are making fun of me?

7:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

frieda, i agree, A++. And I must say that was one very unsettling thing about going out into the general population/work force in Texas - suddenly you're exposed to a whole breed of people that your entire educational life has sort of sheltered you from - the stupidly-don't-even-get-that-they're-racist-kinda-racist-professionals.

additionally, frieda, if you are going to leave comments, i'm going to have to insist you sign off w/ yer name.
-A-non.

9:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Call the BCM compliance dept or HR.

7:18 AM  

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