Casual Racism Fridays

A few weeks ago I'm at a training session at work. I'm waiting in line to sign the roster to get the all-important training credit (9 hours more to go!) and I'm talking to a co-worker who is behind me in line. I get distracted, probably looking inside to see if there would be cookies and somehow she snaked my place in line.

"Hey, how'd you get in front of me?"

"I'm crafty like that," she replied.

Without missing a beat, or even looking up, the woman manning the roster said, "All Chinese are crafty."

Now, ignoring the fact that the coworker I was talking to is blonde and blue-eyed, sort of the anti-Chinese, what does that even mean? Was she referring to the Coca-Cola thing? Because that has been thoroughly discredited. I mean, I'm sure at one point in history a Chinese person put some "pee-pee" in a Coke for humorous effect, but the vast majority of Chinese people frown on such hijinks and do not find urine in soft drinks to be funny at all.

But I don't think she was referring to that. I don't even know if she was referring to anything in particular. Maybe it's like that word association game, and "Chinese" is paired up with "crafty" in her mind. Or maybe she just has to tell the world her opinion about Chinese people for whatever reason.

I'd say that it bothered me all through the training session, but if I'm being honest, I was really more upset that we didn't get cookies.

Now, of course, I think I'm going to try to test her. Next time she's around, I'll mention specific countries and see if I get a response. I'll be sure to report back.