Scenario: Foreign Names

You are speaking a student who is having trouble with his accounting class. You suggest that the student contact Qingling in the tutoring center. The student replies, “Ching Ching? That’s not a name.”

This scenario was overheard by a member of the Productive Discomfort cohort. The group discussed possible responses, including:

Possible responses:

• Our group divided on whether to use the words “racist” or “racism” when addressing this comments. Some felt the comment called for such a label while others felt it was too harsh. Some wanted to say “What you just said would be considered racist by some.” Others were more comfortable saying “What you just said was inappropriate” or “What you just said make me uncomfortable.”
• The group wanted a video called the ILL Doctrine that addressed the issue of telling people that their speech sounds racists without calling the person a racist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc