Exhibit 4212341285 of the subtle racism and microaggressions Asians experiencing in this country. Not even surprised it's from some progressive type either. I'm sure he likes all kinds of asian food though!
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Laney College professor asked a Vietnamese student to “Anglicize” her name to accommodate him
- Thread starter Saya
- Start date
I don't think it is, Phuc and Nguyen are very common Vietnamese names: Fook, Nuyen.
Bui = boo-e
As far as names go, hers is pretty straightforward, definitely better than a shitton of white names like McKennagh and
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Racists always try to use more racism to defend their racism as not racist.
Incredibly shitty, but I'm glad the asshole made a point to leave a paper trail and evidence.
But in general, yes, you're right. I'm sure it would be much, much worse for me as well if I didn't have light skin.
I'm curious. Does your name come from a European language? I used to go mostly by my nickname which is common in Spanish and Catalan, but people aren't aware of it, so despite being white passing I would become suspect once they heard my name.
But in general, yes, you're right. I'm sure it would be much, much worse for me as well if I didn't have light skin.
American doesn't mean white and American doesn't mean exclusively English, but English is arguably the current de facto American language.
All of that to say, my name isn't white, it's English.
But really the professor could have just ASKED how the name was pronounced, or just gone with the last name for all his students if he really had a hard time saying Phuc. I would have guessed it was pronounced "fook" like fool with a "ck" if I've never heard it pronounced though.
Also in my experience a lot of foreign French/Spanish names tend to have an English "equivalent" that gets used.
However, the most confusing for me is always the ones that are English with what looks like French spelling.
For example, beauchamp being pronounced bee-chum and not bow-shawn throws me off.
All of that to say, my name isn't white, it's English.
But really the professor could have just ASKED how the name was pronounced, or just gone with the last name for all his students if he really had a hard time saying Phuc. I would have guessed it was pronounced "fook" like fool with a "ck" if I've never heard it pronounced though.
As a native English speaker, I have trouble pronouncing a lot of foreign European names, especially Gaelic/Welsh/certain Italian names (in my experience).
Also in my experience a lot of foreign French/Spanish names tend to have an English "equivalent" that gets used.
However, the most confusing for me is always the ones that are English with what looks like French spelling.
For example, beauchamp being pronounced bee-chum and not bow-shawn throws me off.
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You are joking right? Heavy northern dialect sounds so weird and in no way "fancy" at all.
I speak some weird Northern/Southern/Viet Kieu mix because my family was part of operation passage to freedom (so I can also shit on both dialects as much as I want 😬) and moved away.
Central sounds ok if people don't go crazy with it.
I mainly struggle with certain people's pronunciation and vocable than with a dialect I would say. Have spent quite some time in each region in these past years.
This reminds me of when my mom was naturalized, by the INS, the clerk wanted her to change our names to "American" names. My mom at the time, didn't realize she could refuse and keep our original name, so after her naturlization ceremony, she became Vivian, I got Paul, and my brother got Alex. They literally pulled new names from a baby book.
Nope because 1) that combination of sounds doesn't exist for any particular language and 2) there are no accepted romanization systems that would use that combination of spellings. Plus the whole incident started because some professor made an assumption of the pronunciation of a student's name based on English language rules and didn't bother to educate himself, so even if there really was someone named "Ho Lee-Shih" wouldn't it be equally important to NOT do the same thing he did? :/
Besides, the English language has graced us with such names as Harry Baals, Dick Assman, or even Dick Pound, name of a former IOC vice president. Now imagine that name being announced to stadiums of people over loudspeaker... Now that's awkward.
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I'm not! I guess it's outsider perception! Hahaha
My parents are always making fun of things like GPS that uses Vietnamese Northern (Bach?) dialect, but are also a little jealous that Bach dialect overtakes everything or seems to be the main export language in media lol. Is it due to the North "winning" the war or generally being closer to the China border so they get more trade and influence? I don't know.
Shit, like that is why I have little patient for white people nonsense. I have gone through all my life of white people struggling to pronounce my name.
That shit is straight up causal racism.
Not having a go at you but this is what we mean by white privilege. You never had a negative reaction and never will. Heck white people can easily pronounce Schwarzenegger but struggle pronounce a basic name like Hasan.
You have no idea much privilege of being white grants you, the world is literally your oyster because white folks set out that way and it is infuriating.
I hear you, many of my white teachers struggled to pronounce mine and other non-white kids name. My dad even told me of the time when his white co-worker told him that his name was too hard to pronounce so he's gonna call him Fred. My dad of course told him no as that is not his name.
I even once had a co-worker who kept failing to pronounce my name and just gave up trying to learn it with just a hand wave.
That shit is straight up causal racism.
Not having a go at you but this is what we mean by white privilege. You never had a negative reaction and never will. Heck white people can easily pronounce Schwarzenegger but struggle pronounce a basic name like Hasan.
You have no idea much privilege of being white grants you, the world is literally your oyster because white folks set out that way and it is infuriating.
I hear you, many of my white teachers struggled to pronounce mine and other non-white kids name. My dad even told me of the time when his white co-worker told him that his name was too hard to pronounce so he's gonna call him Fred. My dad of course told him no as that is not his name.
I even once had a co-worker who kept failing to pronounce my name and just gave up trying to learn it with just a hand wave.
Yeah and I think dialects become standard due to things like perception of prestige and economic strength.
Not that it stops my parents from disliking or making fun of it due to historic tensions between the north and south lol.
You should check out the Name of the Year Awards. The two finalist this year are Mathdaniel Squirrel and Courvoisier Dingle
My favorite will always be Amanda Miranda Panda
What is this numbnuts so fucking smart about that he can be a college professor (or, janitor or whatever he is) but can't be smart enough to accept cultural differences? I doubt this is the first time this wanker has used innuendo to brow beat a minority or foreign student into submitting to his personal preferences~
Innuendo is an underappreciated weapon rich/influential white men have ceaselessly used to destroy countless dissenters.
Innuendo is an underappreciated weapon rich/influential white men have ceaselessly used to destroy countless dissenters.
Dick is literally an accepted name for white people. I don't think his problem was with her name.
Why not just ask her how to pronounce her name? It might be a little awkward, but then you would know it and this whole thing could have been avoided. I've known college professors who have struggled with names, but were willing to learn. Not knowing how to pronounce someone's name isn't bad, but refusing to try and to make them accept a new one for your convenience is just gross.
The fact that he didn't ask how to pronounce her name, but demanded she anglicize it...and then doubled down on that after she pushed back...holy shit.
Jesus Christ the double down. That guy is trash.
People have names. Ask them how to pronounce it. I've never met someone that got upset if you ask them politely rather than make some snide comment about it.
People have names. Ask them how to pronounce it. I've never met someone that got upset if you ask them politely rather than make some snide comment about it.
My name is European origin, but it still has an unintuitive pronunciation, so over the years I've learned to just both pronounce and spell it upfront to avoid all the confused looks and/or complete mangling of the pronunciation. It's a little annoying. But it's just annoying. Can't imagine if I spent my whole life doing that not just for convenience sake, but because some racist idiot might give me an earful about how offensive my name is to him. I'd go nuts.
But obviously that's a choice he made and not imposed on him by a racist professor.
I've met someone who went by Dick Hunter. Man lived his whole life with Richard right there as an option but decided to just embrace the jokes, I guess. He's braver than me.
But obviously that's a choice he made and not imposed on him by a racist professor.
My parents are from the south, so that's always been the default for me. The north dialect sounds very harsh to me, and the central one throws me off because the intonations seem completely different. But I'm illiterate so what do I know? D:
