It can be tricky to explore some of these topics that overlap between cultural background, nationality, how others perceive us, differing norms, assumptions, and communication styles. It can be hard to parse between what we view as the gradient between reasonable and unreasonable assumptions (such as predicting that a Black American in Chengdu probably doesn’t grow up speaking Mandarin, as opposed to very confidently assuming that an Asian of unknown nationality in Chicago couldn’t possibly have grown up speaking English).
Nonetheless, I also really like that there are people in this community who notice and who are aware of subtle things.
I’m glad to read explorations of these kinds of things, and I’m glad that you’ve spent all this time and effort exploring it and sharing some of your findings. Thank you.
It can be hard to parse between what we view as the gradient between reasonable and unreasonable assumptions
Thanks for bringing this up, I think I did significantly update to being a bit more okay with folks being ignorant, or having false assumptions. It’s tough! I would probably make the same mistakes too and would want some space to fumble around and correct myself.
Having that space/slack that strikes me as very valuable. Maybe it is somewhat analogous to the idea of psychological safety that gets talked about so often when discussing company culture.
Some of my most frustrating inter-personal situations involved me being judged harshly for getting something wrong in which (in my perspective) it was totally reasonable and understandable for me to make a guess and get it wrong.
It can be tricky to explore some of these topics that overlap between cultural background, nationality, how others perceive us, differing norms, assumptions, and communication styles. It can be hard to parse between what we view as the gradient between reasonable and unreasonable assumptions (such as predicting that a Black American in Chengdu probably doesn’t grow up speaking Mandarin, as opposed to very confidently assuming that an Asian of unknown nationality in Chicago couldn’t possibly have grown up speaking English).
Nonetheless, I also really like that there are people in this community who notice and who are aware of subtle things.
I’m glad to read explorations of these kinds of things, and I’m glad that you’ve spent all this time and effort exploring it and sharing some of your findings. Thank you.
Thanks for bringing this up, I think I did significantly update to being a bit more okay with folks being ignorant, or having false assumptions. It’s tough! I would probably make the same mistakes too and would want some space to fumble around and correct myself.
Having that space/slack that strikes me as very valuable. Maybe it is somewhat analogous to the idea of psychological safety that gets talked about so often when discussing company culture.
Some of my most frustrating inter-personal situations involved me being judged harshly for getting something wrong in which (in my perspective) it was totally reasonable and understandable for me to make a guess and get it wrong.