With me living in Boston and my sweetheart living in DC, flights were pretty common place. Since I wanted to maximize time with my honey I always took the super early flight out back to Boston. I always tried not to make conversation as I tried to catch my 40 winks before the plane left the runway. I intentionally skipped coffee and just wanted my sleep. On a flight where I was lucky enough to score the exit row, aka the legroom row, I was awoken by a flight attendant.
As I said I tried not to speak so I did not have to fully awake. She asked the regular questions about whether I would be able to “help in case of emergency” type questions that are part and parcel of sitting in an exit row. I nodded. She then asked if I spoke English. I nodded again.
Then she asked me to say a sentence to show I really could speak English. I was ready to smack her.Yes, yes, I know that it was a valid question since what if I was just nodding and did not understand English, but I also knew that the chances of being asked that question had I not been glaringly brown were pretty slim.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! That is amazing. Folks never cease to amaze now do they? Good job sista for not giving her one up side the head and good job again for not showing her just how well you could speak English by laying a few choice words on her =)
Ms. Bar B´s last blog ..Little Dancing Machines
That is so insulting! Unbelievable. And if you didn’t speak English how would you have been able to understand the question? People are really crazy.
This is a glowing example of how we have become so desensitized to ignorance. No one thinks about what they say anymore and no one even cares if they are going to be insulting.
Kristina Brooke´s last blog ..Your Dog IS NOT Like My Child
oooo…that’s maddening. Really, what ARE the chances she would have asked someone caucasian? Congratulations for having more tact, sense, and lack of ignorance than that woman.
I was born and raised in Finland, but now I am married to an American, and have a “foreign” last name. I was in Finland going to a doctor’s visit, and they had my name on the list for my appointment. I heard the receptionist women talking about my weird last name, and speculating about it. Then they called my name and asked if I spoke Finnish.
That’s not even worse. I was pregnant with my first baby in Finland, and had some pain, they wanted to test for STDs and wrote in my medical records that the reason for testing is that husband is a foreigner. (No, I didn’t have any
It never ceases to amaze me how brown=unable to understand. Ugh.
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