I recently met a woman who was absolutely baffled when she heard my last name.
“Now your last name is ______? But I thought _______ was an Irish name. My son-in-law has that same last name.”
She was really confused. I could tell she was wondering, “how could a black person possibly have an Irish last name? Maybe it isn’t Irish in other countries.” She paused for an uncomfortable amount of time, then I realized she wasn’t putting the pieces together.
“It is Irish,” I said.
[Crickets chirp]
“It’s my married name,” I say as I point to my children and my ring, “I am married.”
[add laughter and a smile here so she doesn’t feel stupid or think she offended me]
“So where are you from?” She asks because there can’t possibly be any black people that are actually from Minneapolis.
I almost told her that I am from Ethiopia, but I could tell she was really having a hard time with all of this so giving her a hard time would be a bit much. Black woman, Irish name, two kids, married, in Minnesota? I think it took some of my family a little while to get it, so I had grace for this perfect stranger. Smoke was just about to come out of her ears and her head was about to start spinning. Until…
“I’m from Memphis.”
Whew. Aww, now I get it. Hearing that I was from the South made it all come together.
Aside from the from the possibility of it being my married name a couple other possibilities ran through my head while she was talking: either I or my spouse could be adopted and there are black Irish. I also could have made up the name just to confuse her.
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Wow. I’m guessing she doesn’t get out much. She hasn’t yet discovered that people and their names don’t fit into little boxes very well. You were amazingly gracious. I really hope this isn’t a common experience for you.
Kristen,
It’s never happened quite like that. I mean that lady was seriously confused, but people say stupid things to me enough times to give me some practice in how [not] to respond. Earlier this month someone was at Nathan’s family reunion and said to me, “Now, it’s obvious that you are not an original member of this family so how have you gotten along with having so many people around?” That one shocked me. There were so many levels of wrong in that statement. After he made that “obvious” statement and saw that I was trying to think of how to respond to that, he tried mid sentence to fix it by relating back to how many people were around and it just didn’t work. I had to turn my verbal filter on “high.” I’ve also had two people at church start talking to me as if I were the other black lady at church. To be fair it has been since I got my hair cut, but those actually made me cry.
I think I am going to start telling people my last name is “Gray-bear” or “Bin-Laden”. I guess the first is technically true, if you count my mother’s maiden name…
I feel your pain, honey. It was like the looks I got when people found out I was at school on a scholarship for American Indians. Serious disconnect…
Nathan: I can hear the crickets chirpping as you made that statement.
Yikes. Awkward indeed. I am grateful you are who you are friend. Someone lacking your impressive level of tact might have just punched that person in the face.
I will admit I have said some stupid stuff in my tenure. I too don’t realize it’s stupid until it’s out there. I find myself wanting to follow up with, “No really, I’m not stupid. I’m actually well educated but incredibly naive. Really!” while inevitably chasing the person down a side walk…