Raven Symone is an idiot. I’m tired of trying to give her the benefit of the doubt and I’m tired of trying to figure out what she was really trying to say. To me, she’s like the archetypal child star: smugly ignorant, with a profound lack of education that comes across nearly every time she opens her mouth. I guess The View hired her because they thought the controversies would be good for the show. Not so much.
On Friday’s show, Raven Symone and the ladies were discussing a recent study about implicit racism and names. As in, if an employer gets applications from equally qualified Taniquwa Brown and Emily Jones, Emily Jones is going to get hired almost every time ahead of Taniquwa. And you would think that someone named “Raven Symone” would understand this and feel compassion and bring an interesting perspective to the table. You would be wrong. After showing a viral video about the 60 most “ghetto names,” Raven said:
“Just to bring it back, can we take back ‘racist’ and say ‘discriminatory,’ because I think that’s a better word. And I’m very discriminatory against words like the ones they were saying in those names. I’m not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea. It’s just not going to happen. I’m not going to hire you.”
“I’m not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea,” said RAVEN SYMONE. That kind of cognitive dissonance is astonishing.
Just for a bit of perspective, my real name (my real name is not Kaiser) is very Indian. Like, my name is profoundly Indian. There was a man who had a very similar name to mine and he unified the Indian subcontinent around 300 BC. I’ve never been told that my name is too ethnic/weird to be hired for a job, but that’s not the thing people actual say out loud, you know? Whenever I go anywhere new and I have to sigh and spell out my name very slowly for all of the new people, I can feel the judgment. I can feel the “why didn’t her parents just name her Jennifer?” vibe. So this would be like me encountering a Vijay Singh and saying, “Nope, I can’t even start with THAT NAME.”
Photos courtesy of WENN.
What a bigot…………
Plus idiot. The two often go together.
Right? This kind of comment from a girl named Raven to a crazy nutjob named Whoopi. There is some serious WTF all over this
I wouldn’t hire a woman with a shaved head and blue lipstick. Just sayin’.
I just saw a tweet of hers, which I think has been deleted but of course in this day and age, somebody SS it, and it said “I am NOT African American nor black. It took me a long time to find myself and I have finally done so. To be honest, I am actually dark white.” Coming from the girl who didn’t want to label herself, so yes idiot and bigot. Time to just ignore everything that comes out of her mouth.
…dark…white…LMAO
Go with God Raven. No. Really. GO.
She’s the black Bristol Palin. Every time she opens her mouth, stupid comes out.
So good. Yes.
Actually she is the “colorless” Bristol Palin LOL
The “dark white” Bristol Palin.
Raven might be all of the names above but no matter how much of an idiot we think she is she’s only saying what a lot of people in a hiring position are thinking. When going through resumes there is name discrimination. A Susan, Rebecca or Jennifer would most likely be chosen over a name such as Turrquoise, Celebrity Gorgeous, Alize or Chardinay. I used the last four names because I actually know girls with those names. I am also as part of my job responsible for going through resumes and scheduling interviews for potential job applicants . I’m happy to say I base my choice on experience, not the names.
I did study this topic in college and corporations not only discriminate based on names but also zip codes. I don’t completely agree with Raven but some parents are setting their kids up for ridicule or judgement when you give your kids names such as the names I mention. I will be honest and say that I thanked my mom for not giving me a name that ended in a esha, or the name of a car, a drink or food. Some of us on this site have even criticized celebrities for giving their kids unusual names. Some have said they’re glad some celebs gave their kids normal names. Paltrow was criticized for naming her daughter Apple. Jason Lee was laughed at for naming his son Pilot Inspecta.
People have the right to name their kids whatever they want but some names are a bit ridicules.
Someone said below that even if an ethnic person has a normal name doesn’t mean they will get the job once the interviewee sees them. But I say at least that name gets you through the door to the interview. It’s not right but the reality is not many people are going to want to discuss job opportunities with a Precious, Marguanna or a Shakey unless they’re casting agents in Hollyweird were names are not that important.
They also don’t like “country” sounding names, or at least I know a girl named Ernestine who was asked by a NJ company to change her name. The company saw itself as very chic and urbane, and they thought her name was too redneck. She did it, because she always hated her name anyway, but I’m not sure I would have. How dare they?
I agree with what this says about the hiring process. As much as it is wrong I will admit to correcting the spelling of my nephews name. We adopted our nephews because their mother is a meth/herion addict. Our oldest middle name was “Jymzs” and we corrected the spelling to “James”. Our rationale was down the road we did not want that spelling to be a red flag of his past. I did not want him to deal with writing that on any resumes or applications.
100% agree. I basically got roasted alive for say the same things on another site. What she said is true. It may not be the correct way to select an employee, but just because people may not like the process doesn’t make it any less real. I feel as if my thoughts are jumbled up inside my head.
What an idiot who obviously isn’t self-aware regarding her own moniker. Too bad whoever hired her didn’t have the same prejudice.
I suppose The View has turned from a talk show into a sitcom? Because I find the show laughable and a huge joke now
I can’t believe that show is still on.
To be honest the comments on the Celebitchy site tend to be more insightful and informative than anything that has been said on the View in years
I love how most people on the panel had a pause like “wtf do you KNOW your name girl?…as she sits across from Whoopi!! I mean damn
I would love for Raven dumb a$$ to be fired because she does the black community more harm with her constant ignorance.
Btw should I also mention that her gf’s name is AZMARIE?!
I never watched The View but I hate what they have spawned. My mother was watching this hideous version of The View the other day. It was jaw dropping bad. The women have all this fake enthusiasm that is nauseating. They’re painfully self absorb. And one woman was talking about the health problems of her husband one minute and then continued into talk show mode the next.
She’s an idiot.
My question is… I have heard about these kind of studies growing up, in college, now. And it’s obviously not right and inherent bias.
But what are we going to do about it? How do you address it? What’s the next step?
Your hearts in the right place, but this isn’t really one of those things that can be fixed. Sadly private businesses passing over an applicant because of their name won’t raise the same flags as someone being fired for their name.
So long as they’re discrete there’s nothing anyone can do about it without evidence.
There is an anecdote that JK Rowling deliberately used her initials rather than her name on the cover of the Harry Potter series because she was told that boys/men wouldn’t read a book written by a woman.
Allegedly it was a deliberate publishing choice to use her initials and apparently during the initial ran of the first book, people were genuinely surprised to find that it was written by a woman. Everybody thought JK must be a man.
Clearly, society is indoctrinated in many different ways to discriminate based upon names.
@LAK
I read that. And personally….when I first started reading the Harry Potter books as a kid…..I thought it was a man, until I read the back cover flap. It said “She lives in……”. So I was like……OH.
I think one think wie can do is be aware of it and in some situations use anonymisation. like, do you need to know the names (and gender) of someone when looking over their job application? Or the name of a student when you are correcting their essay?
I like that suggestion @Lena. It of course has limitations (you do need names for interviews), but could be a help and an eye-opener. I think you & J-G are right, we have to look for ways to address the issue. The first being self awareness. The Eternal Side Eye is correct in that it may be harder to detect and address individual cases, but I don’t think that is an excuse to nothing.
@Lena, you’re right. Personal information is not necessary at all when correcting a student’s paper or reviewing a resume. I know teachers who cover over the student name when correcting for a variety of reasons. During the hiring process, we recommend that the whoever in HR is assigned to open applications/resumes immediately assign the applicant a number and blot out names and addresses from the copies given to the hiring committee. Only after the interviews are scheduled, sometimes right before the person walks into the room, should HR give them any names. Of course, there isn’t much one can do about hiding gender if the person went to Wellesley as an undergraduate or about age discrimination if there is 40 years of work experience on the resume but it is a start.
The crazy thing now living in the Middle East is I now place my birthdate (with year), marital status and photo on my CV.
In the past, I also had my boss tell me he won’t even interview a person without their photo on the CV and my CEO comment on my weight… To my face… In front of clients… Multiple times.
@Ripley It’s exactly the same in Germany and in Poland it’s almost the same, excluding the marital status, but some offers for regular jobs, which can be done by almost anyone (like sales assistant), outright state that the candidates have to be attractive or under 30. Recently I read a job offer for a position of a flight attendant and they wanted candidates to send a porfolio of professionally done photos of an entire body, profile, face and back and there was even an information about measurements. Made me wonder if any candidates sent them nudes.
I think acknowledging and talking about it — rather than glossing it over or ignoring it — is one step in the right direction. It won’t eliminate the problem or change the behaviors of racists, but it can’t hurt to keep a dialogue open. For 20 years I didn’t know about the historical roots of unique names and dialects in the black community, and once I did, I started to actively challenge my own conditioning. I’ll never be able to erase all the biases within me, but now I can call them out when I see them in other people — and use facts and compassion to avoid them when they pop into my own head. It’s a start, hopefully.
Then again, I shared a story downthread about a temporary boss who didn’t hire people with names that didn’t sound white. I should have reported him. In the future, that’s exactly how I’ll handle examples of illegal discrimination… but honestly, it didn’t fully sink in until a year or two later that he was being so awful. Because I had the luxury of being ignorant… people of color do not.
Also, what Lena said! There should be name-blind (and gender-blind and race-blind) application processes. That won’t fix the problem — it only works until the first interview — but it will give more people a chance to vouch for themselves in person, instead of ruling them out immediately for illegal reasons.
It’s not exclusively about race, though. It is also about class, and making class assumptions. For example, the name “Brittney”… Very generally speaking, that name/ spelling became popular in a certain time period among a certain race and class of people. We as a culture laugh about “stripper names” etc, but this reflects some real, ingrained cultural biases. Would I assume someone named Brittney is white, under 30, from a mid or low income family and a non-urban place? Probably. Would I assume someone named “Tanequwa” is black? Probably. But would I not HIRE someone based on those assumptions? No way. We can acknowledge our learned or inherent biases and choose, as much as possible, not to act or behave or treat people based on those biases .
Barack did all right for himself.
Except…he used to go by Barry.
And…they’re still calling him a Muslim. And saying he was born in Kenya. And (in terms of the Congress) disrespecting him and his position every chance they get.
Barack is just foreign. Like Julien or Ling or Vladimir. All common enough in other places.
I think it is up to us to face any bias we might have against people, name, hair, ect. I challenge myself when I make a bias thought about someone. I can do this because I have had wonderful friends or experience from people that are quite different from me. I would tell my 4th and 5th graders, that they are going to miss out on a lot of great people if they only stayed friends with others in their group. ( this was about boys and girls being friends)
What Raven doesn’t understand: The black person with the “white sounding” name will not get hire once they show up.
Me too. I don’t have as many ingrained biases as Americans, I don’t think, because I grew up in a multicultural society. I often didn’t even know what Americans were talking about or what ethnic groups and people’s ideas about them were. It was all so arbitrary. And almost every time I disregarded those stereotypes and followed my gut–like subbing at a school no one wanted to teach at–I was rewarded with the knowledge that people are full of crap. I always told my students: its up to you to locate the humanity in every person you encounter (in an ordinary social context. Not, like, your abuser so you can excuse his actions). If you don’t, the failure is yours.
This puts the onus on victims of discrimination, but lots of people choose to use their initials on resumes to help hide gender and race. I have heard of one or two places starting to make it more anonymous (blacking out names, etc.) but that can only be done with large corporations with large HR departments I think. So many places you have the person hiring actually receiving the emails or applications in person, so that can only go so far.
This is what happens when you allow a corporation to raise a child.
right!
Says the chick with purple hair and lipstick……. it’s like she INSISTS on being an a**hole.
Just because people need you to spell your name, does not mean they are being judgmental. I married into a hard to spell but very American name and I have to spell it out for people ALL the time.
I’ve had two very easy last names to spell (single and married) and I still had to spell them. Believe it or not, my third daughter’s name is Erin and many people still what to use the male version, Aaron, when I have to give her name. So, I get that having to spell a name does not mean they are being judgmental. As a teacher I have seen some unusual names (Antijuan, Alois (male and when I asked how to pronounce it, he said “Al”), Therese and Therese H for identical twins, etc.).
My last name is four letters long and not unusual – people always ask me how to spell it. I just spell it but I want to say, really? How many ways could you possibly spell it?
My married name is a color, the kind you learn to spell at age 5 (not turquoise or azure, say. Think Red). I deliberately took my husband’s name so I’d never have to deal with people asking me how to spell my last name ever again. And yet. Still. 99% of dumbasses on the phone who spell it out to me after I say it do it wrong. Even when I say “Red like the color.” If you’re literate and can’t get my name right, there’s not much hope for America.
I think the author would know if she’s encountering racism.
What you justsaid is akin to “My white brother gets arrested too, so cops don’t ONLY arrest black men.” Yeah, it’s not the same.
I think Kaiser is aware of when and why people are judging her for her last name.
Well if it’s hard to spell, it’s hard to spell–whether it is American or not ;).
I have a fairly common married name and I still spell it out for people, without being asked. There are variations on the simplest name.
The problem isn’t people asking you to spell your name. It’s the fact that there are preconceived notions and judgments against people who have unconventional (by white standards) names; thus, leading them to be discriminated against for jobs and such. Why pass over Shaniqua for Alice if they are both equally qualified?
Agreed. I have a very Indian name like Kaiser. I can’t count how many times someone has remarked (in what they thought was funny way) “Oh , why can’t your name be Jennifer?”
I can’t begin to wonder what goes through a hiring manager’s mind. From what I’ve overhead over the years it’s anything from “Oh, Tyrone might rob us one day.” to “Please dont let Priya bring in her stinky Indian food” It’s sickening. (I’ve actually heard those comments!)
The inherent bias/prejudice/racism is just there. I once met a boy in college who later confessed that he thought I didn’t speak any English…I guess because of the color of my skin?
Definitely agree with this. The most brilliant, caring physician I have worked for had an “ethnic” sounding name. She’s saved many a life and don’t even want to imagine what a disservice it would have been to her and her patients if she had been passed up just because of a name.
My only point was that hopefully the author doesn’t assume that every time somebody asks her to spell her name, it is being done with judgment because many many people get asked how to spell their name everyday.
I have no problems spelling out my name if need be, and I dont know anybody who is offended by a white person attempting to learn how to say their name correctly. The problem here is that bigots can figure who “the other” is in a split second. Which then means that minority ethnicities are faced with the choice of either anglicizing their names (Shaniqua becomes Sharon, Harpinder becomes Harriet and Sun Yi becomes Sussy) and erasing their heritage OR losing out on opportunities they rightly deserve. Its such a ridiculous position to be in.
It is totally ridiculous.
Jews have faced this one as well, and to choose to Anglicize (or Americanize) the name raises all kinds of questions about assimilation.
How about the Irish in their day; remember the slur word using Mc?
I totally agree about the Anglicisation of other cultures’ names. I have a very dear Korean friend who does not use her Korean name because it is “too difficult” for American people to say. FFS, just learn the name already, it is actually quite a simple one to say. Instead of which she was christened by her oafish husband, when he met her, as Cindy. It boils my blood to think that she has to be diminished in this way for the convenience of morons.
My name is not Judy, it’s a hard to spell, hard to pronounce name, both first and last names. It’s also very long. I’ve only had great reactions to my name. Since elementary school, people have asked me to spell and pronounce it, and they’ve also asked its meaning, and it has a beautiful meaning. I’ve never met anyone with my name. Being asked to share my name and it’s meaning has never felt like a chore, but rather an opportunity to share and educate. I worked with one woman who was pregnant and said she’d name her baby after me, I was miffed. I’ve held five jobs in my life: paralegal, advertising, social worker, teacher and librarian. I never had difficulty getting jobs because of my name. My kids are getting first jobs now and people are enchanted by their names, often asking if it’s their real names or nicknames. Maybe because we live in a VERYliberal area, but they’ve never had a school mate named Jane, Mary or Richard. Willow, Izumi and Rahsan are far more common. There are many Tenzins at their school. I had a student named Bich and discovered it was Vietnamese for Jade. Even at my job I have older coworkers named Song and Aisha. We are multi ethnic at my place of work and cultural and ethnic names FAR exceed traditional names.
wow. do you live in the fairytale wonderland of my dreams? 🙂 this sounds amazing.
I couldn’t wait to come to CB after I read about this.
Note that she uses “Watermelondrea” — using watermelon as a racist sneer. WTF is wrong with this woman?
Her Twitter feed was blazing with some of the funniest slams against her that I’ve ever read.
Yeah, that was BAD.
That one bugs me, that is no ones name, just some jerk made it up to make fun of black women.
She took the name from the video she apparently watched… this rant was a response to the video. I won’t give them the satisfaction of linking to it… but it’s incredibly offensive and racist. Watermelondrea was one of dozens of “ghetto” names.
Actually that’s a character on Youtube played by a black guy
And he had a brilliant clap back to her. I think his real name is Tre Melvin.
(I have a very common maiden name and I lived in a historic neighborhood next to a more ethnic and gang known area – mostly Puerto Rican). A few years back, I showed up to a job interview at a high powered consulting firm. On interview 2, I sat down with the 2 ladies who would be my bosses. 1st one was great. 2nd one was ridiculous. The first thing she said was, “oh thank god you’re white. I thought since you live in the ghetto with a name like that, well, I didn’t have a good feeling”. Nailed the interview and declined the job.
Good for you for turning it down.
Should have filed a complaint on your way out. If that’s what she says in a freakin’ interview imagine what she says on an everyday basis.
Oh I told my recruiter. She was so excited to deliver an offer and then I explained what happened. I know she informed their HR (I was escorted out of the interview by the same woman who made comments sobs had no one to contact). But yes, I told the recruiter almost the exact same thing, if she thinks she can talk like this in an interview (which was for an HR position and she is a VP in HR), what would this woman say on every other day not on her best behavior? They called back twice with offers and the lady who said it called to apologize – how she understands that her frankness comes off wrong and she saw I had worked for two minority based companies previously so me being white caught her off guard and she’s sorry. Yeah, I just wasn’t going that particular brand of bull-shit. I had another better offer by the end of that week.
You dodged working for a racist – and an idiot! Good luck on the better job.
Wow. Just wow. Good for you.
Even if one thought that, why in the world would one say it out loud?!?! Wouldn’t there be some kind of filter? Like, “hey, open racism isn’t cool, keep it to yourself” or something? What people choose to share astounds me sometimes. Her feelings, alas, are probably not uncommon but there’s a big difference between private thoughts and sharing them with a complete stranger. When you’re head of HR, no less.
I have a feeling she wasn’t head of HR much longer. Hence the apologetic phone call, hoping to smooth things over.
I don’t watch this show but from all I’ve read about it over the years, I have to wonder whether they actually ask the hosts to stay the most stupid and controversial things on purpose.
Your name, btw, is beautiful. (I figured it out…)
I too think I’ve guessed Kaiser’s real name, and I agree it’s a very beautiful name.
She is an idiot, and unfortunately for us has been given a platform to convey her ignorance. I am black and have an ethnic name. I used to go by a nickname, until very recently, to prevent people getting it wrong. I no longer care.
““Just to bring it back, can we take back ‘racist’ and say ‘discriminatory,’ because I think that’s a better word. And I’m very discriminatory”
She’s such a waste of everything.
She tries SO hard. Is this what life is like for you when you have to wake up everyday and find excuses to be a nu wave colorblind ‘please accept me I’m one of you, really’ people?
Dancing around definitions of words, pretending racial bias doesn’t effect you, and trying so hard to get that ‘Approved’ stamp? If she weren’t so extreme looking I’d say she’s got the same success plan as Stacey Dash – hate everything about yourself till they love you.
Sheesh. I’m now officially more sad for her than annoyed. She’s pathetic as hell and barely in her sheltered Hollywood bubble does she even function. Even her antics on this show won’t save her when it’s cancelled and she realizes the demand for her isn’t there.
It is sad, right? So much internalized racism. And to top it off she made these comments in front of a black women named Whoppi.
Seriously. I feel like she is a walking advertisement for internalized racism so blatant it is even obvious to a white person like me.
And she needs a vocabulary and usage course. Discriminatory = biased in her actions. Discriminating = (usually) being particular, discerning.
I guess she wouldn’t hire Condolezza Rice.We don’t choose our names, our parents do.If she will discriminate based on a person’s name.Then is it OK to discriminate against her based on her race and sexual orientation? Then again she doesn’t believe in labels so she isn’t African American or Lesbian.So I guess she will probably say racism and homophobia is fine as well.She is an idiot who speaks proper English so people assume she has some sense.
See above; she doesn’t even speak proper English! She just thinks she does.
Exactly. I suppose in her mind she’s covered all her based of facing actual discrimination and can go after others.
Honestly, as a parent, these kinds of things weighed heavily in my mind when choosing a name. I do worry about my daughter’s ethnic name. It’s not too out there for “English” speakers but I worry about discrimination. When choosing names I looked for names that I thought were beautiful, easy to spell, and couldn’t be easily turned into a way to make fun of the name.
I worked at a pediatric dr office for years and name spelling can be so tricky. If you assumed and spelled it wrong parents would get mad. If you asked for the spelling they acted offened. I have a Goddaughter named Rani – it’s a new and inventive spin on Rainy. What surprised me about it was that her mother has an unusually spelled name and HATES having to correct people constantly.
I get it. My name is Sonya – pronounced son-yah – and 98% of people will say it sone-yah and spell it Sonia. Most of the rest will say son-jah and spell is Sonja. While I never felt my name was being judged I did feel like people thought I was being an a$$hole when I corrected them.
Your spelling is very nice.
I will identify myself by first and last name, which is not that hard as names go, and then the person on the other phone will say it back WRONG despite my having said it out loud 15 seconds earlier. It’s finally starting to bug me. Shows how little they actually listen, especially customer service people who have to deal with this all day long. I don’t know whether to sympathize or be annoyed.
I CANNOT STAND people who are offended when you get their name wrong. Get over yourself! All you need to do is smile and say, “Actually, it’s this.” And if they still get it wrong, well, maybe they’re kinda deaf. Or stupid. It happens, and it’s not a reflection on you.
My name (first and last) are hard to spell/pronounce and it’s just something I deal with. Generally when giving my name like at the doctors or whatever I say it then spell it immediately without waiting for the other person to try and guess. Saves a lot of time. I don’t even think about correcting people, it’s just something I’ve had to do my entire life and watch both my parents do (they also have difficult names). Most people WANT to get your name right, and the more you can do to help them out the better it usually is. Some don’t care, of course, but that makes them the rude ass and isn’t a reflection on you at all.
While my name isn’t uncommon it’s close to about 5 or more similar names, so I get called Kristina, Krystal, Krissy etc. but it doesn’t bother me. If it’s a friend I’ll correct them, but I always tell people not to worry if they mix it up, i’ll still answer to it if I think they’re talking to me. I have a really hard time remembering names, so the fact that someone was able to mostly remember mine, and is making an effort is cool with me.
I have a “foreign” name, difficult for most people to say at first–not all but most–and I don’t mind correcting them if they ask (or if it’s way off)…I make the determination based on whether I think I will see them again or not and if so, on a regular basis, new friends, etc. My only major issue comes with spelling it. I work in a business where name=brand and often, I do incredible amounts of work for institutions for little and sometimes no pay. So the “value” for me is largely in the name recognition, in the alliance with the name of the institution. My site and business all bear my name because I like it, it is unique, and it describes things better than any other DBA would. So when a publicity department at said institution has all my info which I provide efficiently including the email address (bearing business name) they use to communicate with me and also, they have others in the department to proof, I do get super-irritated I see my name misspelled in publicity materials. At that point, it is just lack of care, no other real excuse for it. But to counter this, when I ask for final view of materials prior to press, I get labelled diva. Time to get a thick-skinned assistant…
Raven sounds like an absolute jerk but come on some parents name their kids stupid things. Think about what they have to put on a resume! This applies just as seriously to everyone who names their kid dumb white names like Nevaeh, Sunflower, Renesmee… Sometimes I think people name their kids something they think will sound cool when they’re 2 or 3 but forget their kid is going to grow up and have this name. I knew boys named after Disney characters and it was AWFUL. Christopher Robin, Merlin, and Aladdin. Poor Aladdin was not of the culture where it would be fine to be named that. Nope, just a white boy whose parents were Disney fans. Can we all just admit we are judgy of people’s choices sometimes? Maybe it’s only me. I wouldn’t decline to hire a qualified person but I feel bad their parents gave them something they had to overcome from the outset.
Thank you! Some parents give names that have no meaning. Especially african Americans. I am Nigerian, it’s almost unheard to give a child a name that has no meaning. If african Americans need names that sound original and african, then they should borrow names from Africa. I am not in support of discrimination but then they should limit the kind of names they spin.
@Daniela
You sound just as ignorant as Raven.
As a fellow Nigerian I disagree.
African Americans do not really share a common culture with Afticans. Yes, both groups started from the same origin of land there was a schism created some Africans were taken to America due to slavery. That emotional connection to our culture and history was somewhat lost while there’s was newly created.
They have a right to create their own culture, their own names, their own meanings, also save for quite a few don’t get it twisted. Many of the names are different variations on the names they’d have already encountered in the U.S. as slaves.
I’m hesitant to criticize women of color for being ignorant about anything involving race or racial differences… because let’s face it, as a white girl, I don’t have to LIVE this stuff on a daily basis, and I don’t know what experiences or fears have influenced Raven’s beliefs.
HOWEVER…
it seems she has very little desire to understand the historical or socioeconomic implications of the behaviors she loves to criticize. She takes a stereotype and runs with it, and I understand the desire to protect/isolate herself from the discrimination that the black community faces, but it’s so enraging to see a public figure refuse to do any research whatsoever, and spout off racist stereotypes like they’re facts.
Selecting “ghetto” (NOT my term) names for children, for example… like AAVE (African American Vernacular English), it’s rooted in something very specific: a desire to carve out a unique identity and culture for people who were quite literally robbed of their names, their homes, and their languages. It makes perfect sense, actually.
As a privileged little white girl with a liberal arts education, I once viewed certain names and dialects as “uneducated” and “unintelligent”… and most people in my family still do. But when I met more people of color and did my homework, I understood that it’s actually a fascinating way to see anthropology in progress… a culture continuing to form in distinct and creative ways. And it deserves to be respected and even celebrated… anything else is an attempt to maintain a status quo that silences and erases the identity of people of color.
I had a seasonal temp-type job with a boss who seemed to only hire young white women… and one day, he was literally reading aloud the names of job applicants, and scoffing at the idea that he’d hire any of them. He was laughing about the fact that these women bothered to apply. He wasn’t being “discriminatory” simply because of their names; he was being a RACIST, period. And it was illegal, and I still wish I would have reported him, but it was a contract-type situation and I didn’t even know who his superiors were.
In short, I CAN’T with this. And I really hope there aren’t kids listening to her nonsense and blaming themselves or their parents for institutional oppression that is not their fault.
Exactly right. Every AAVE name holder has just as much reason for pride as every John the Fourth or Henry Junior. Slavery robbed African peoples of their languages. People are trying to get them back. Names have power and identity.
I appreciate your point of view, however, as a black female I honestly believe that black people need to stop this stupid crap. Naming a child after an alcoholic beverage or an automobile is just plain stupid. It has nothing to do with heritage or the fact that our names were taken away but who can out – stupid the next person by naming their kid the most ridiculous mess that no one, not even the kid, can spell or pronounce. There is a lot of black on black crime in the nearby cities and the police and news reporters can’t even pronounce the names of the victims, suspects or their parents.
I worked at a large, well known black university and I could see that ethnic names were going out of style in the black middle and upper classes. Maybe everyone else can catch a clue that they are not doing their kids any favors.
It’s not just black people. Regardless, one shouldn’t judge. Kids don’t name themselves; their parents do that for them–of all races, classes & cultures.
AAVE naming conventions, in truth, only came into vogue after the 70s with the Keishas & the Kenyattas.
In a real sense, as a result of naming conventions that come out of the 70s, I’ve heard people having conversations about black parents who name their African American children names that are overly identified as white or Caucasian and, as a result, have people scratching their heads as well. But those people aren’t slammed (as much).
Once again, it’s not just black people. American names (of course with historic roots elsewhere) that were once somewhere in the middle (Karen, Michelle, James, Victoria, Frank, Tracy, Donna, Barbara, Wiiliam, Louis) are no longer showing up on birth certificates. Period.
Eh, geezlouise. I’m a black woman too and your whole argument is more classist than insightful. It’s like a stop-it-you’re-embarrassing-us-in-front-of-the-white-people attitude towards what other people are naming their kids like you think it’s going to drag down your credibility.
And are you complaining about the name Mercedes? That’s Shakespearean. Ditto Portia and its spelling variants. Now if you know an Oldsmobile or a Buick I will SMH right along with you, but can’t we blame that on stupid and not blackness? After all, it was white people that named their kid Hashtag. HASHTAG.
While I can’t argue that the more extreme “black” names are difficult and sometimes absurd, this isn’t the first time in history weird-ass names have happened. Consider the French Revolution era names Phytogyneantrope, Fraise, La Loi, and Civilization-Jemmape-Republique. People were straight up named Strawberry and The Law, OK? This sh*t is not new.
I am not concerned about anyone else so what the French or white people do is not important to me. Nor did I mention the word Mercedes so stop assuming. I know a highly educated woman with an ethnic name who couldn’t find a job to save her soul. When it was suggested that she put her initials on her resume instead of her full name she accepted a position within two weeks. It’s not classist but life. Harvard did a study on this very subject and it is explained very well in the movie “Freakonomics”. We are famous for making excuses for dumb behavior. It isn’t getting us ahead.
Women “of color”? Everyone has a color. Just the other day, I ordered a toaster oven from Amazon. Before it would finalize my purchase, it prompted me to select a color. One of the options was WHITE. Guess that’s a color, too.
Thank you.
I hate to start any compliment as ‘And for a white girl” but there’s something to be said about the fact you learned to understand some aspect of a cukture outside of yours and respect their processes.
Black Americans were robbed of so much right down to their names and for many of them they have struggled to create a new cultur identity in a society that judges everything on its proximity to whiteness.
Thank you for being educated and no thanks to Raven for being the worst at everything.
She is a damn moron and I would like to kick whoever lifted the rock she was under.
I feel like her and Whoopi go out of their way to be as ignorant and difficult as possible. I hate it because they are basically saying what sexist and/or racist people would like to say, but don’t because they don’t want to get in trouble. So now there are these 2 idiots making the most disrespectful/ignorant comments and people turn around think it’s ok because these black women are saying it. Pisses me off every time.
Yes… I know I don’t have the right to criticize women of color for their defense mechanisms/whatever the hell it is, but I really fear that racists are using Raven and Whoopi to give themselves permission to keep being racist. The onus isn’t on these women to change racists’ minds… but from an outsider’s perspective, I just *know* there are racist white women watching and nodding and thinking “if only more of them were like her”. Again… not their problem, and those women would find an excuse somewhere else without them… but I can already hear the justifications.
I just wish network executives cared more about engaging in thoughtful and progressive conversations about race, rather than only hiring women of color who are willing to perpetuate stereotypes and laugh off/deny institutional racism. We all dismiss the View and its ilk as ignorant BS, but there are so many privileged and out-of-touch people who still watch, and it would be so helpful to sneak some education into moments like these. How boring to cater to closed minds.
@Brittney
Sadly there always seems to be some need for a minority individual to serve as the voice of those more racist thoughts. It’s such a shame. Ben Carson comes to mind, he has nothing of value to add in terms of economic planning or actual Presidential topics but drones on and on about the faults of the black community.
I work in a clinic in Montana where we are sorely lacking in cultural diversity (we’re really white out here) and every day I find myself calling (white) patients out of the waiting room knowing I’m mangling their grammatical challenging names. Such as Kellcy? Which is Kelsey. And Juana which seems straightforward but was/is pronounced Janay. I was corrected with a hair flip as well…I don’t believe anyone should be discriminated against or profiled because of an unusual name or spelling. But please don’t get offended when I really can’t pronounce your name.
I heard of a Dylan whose name was spelled Dyln. People, really. Come On.
I knew an Alyssa that was pronounced El-LYE-sah. She was one of my campers at summer camp and I remember being sorry for her because she’s going to have that exchange for the rest of her life. I have a weird name too, I get it. Being bitchy to people getting your name wrong gets you nowhere. It does wear on you, but that’s life.
If you’re the one getting it wrong, a simple smile and a “do forgive me” is good enough. If they’re getting huffy over an honest mistake it’s not really your problem.
That’s what is so annoying. People trying to come up with some “unique” spelling which ends up making their name impossible to pronounce correctly.
Jessamyn = Jasmine
Jardin = Jordon
My cousin is a nurse in a NICU unit, mostly babies born to mothers on drugs. And some of the names?!?! Omg!
Abcde, that is some poor child’s name out there. Pronounced Ab-say-dee
Abcde has actually been used quite a bit. Awful. I also hate the replacing ‘c’s with “k”s trend and I’m not talking about the Kardashians (although Kourtney and Khloe are perfect examples). Also changing ‘i’s to ‘y’s so like Jennifer to Jennyfer. WHY?!?! Just WHY!??!
For the record I do not agree with her comments but having worked in cooperate America and human resources. I have seen many manages say no to interviewing a lot of black people. How do they know their black. They identify them by their name lakishawanda for example. They don’t say they not hiring them because their black but the use other excuses but I realized after a while that people whose resumes had names like these always ended up not even being interviewed. So I am just surprised Raven is one of them . I would expect this from white cooperate America who use a name like this to quietly discriminate
@Timeless. I cannot stand Raven with the silent accent ‘e’ (???) on Symone. But the reality is that if you have a black-sounding name (-wanda, -ayvon, -esha, etc.) you are not going to be hired by corporate America unless they have some quota they want to fill. When I hit senior year in high school I started to use the initials of my first and middle names and have insisted on it ever since. I have two stripper names back to back. I do not care what my parents’ reasoning was, I simply accepted reality and dealt with it. Now when people look at my CV they see “F.M. Lastname”. I get shortlisted for interviews. Always. They interviewers are always shocked. People think, from my CV, I am an accomplished white male lawyer. I never list sex. The important thing is to get in the door and get interviewed, then get hired and prove my worth. I am black and female. Reality sucks but you have to confront it head on until such time…
So accommodate the stereotypes & conform?
That is actually really clever and a good way to beat the racist system. Although would be hard for me with my SUPER LONG AND ETHNIC last name. But seriously, that’s clever. If enough people did that maybe they would even learn not to judge by the name.
I’m no fan of hers, but I feel bad for her. It seems like she has a lot of self-loathing regarding being black.
She is not the only one who discriminates based on names though. The truth is this kind of quiet discrimination is happening in cooperate America everyday
I’m fully aware of that, but I think *her* opinion on the issue comes from the fact that she seems to have a lot of self-loathing.
Canada too. “Studies have shown…” using resumes, and the discrimination extends to South and East Asian and Middle-Eastern names due to the different composition of the population here.
Well, black people in Canada more often have ‘neutral’ (sigh, white, I guess)
-sounding first names, to go with last names that don’t sound ethnic. Although, you then get saddled with white people who tell you that you’re not *really* black because you don’t sound or act or dress or like the one thing they learned about black American people that they learned from a television show made by white people who learned what black people are *like* from television written by white people who learned what black people *like*…. and so on through that vortex.
Trust me, we get the the, ‘Oh, I didn’t expect… uh… sputter, sputter, sputter’ ALL the damn time.
Sometimes they thought they were talking to one of ‘their own’. It’s just like that scene out of The Jerk, Actually, I know you can’t tell because this is the phone, but you’re talking to one of them right now.’
Yup.
Canada is frequently just a story we like to tell, hell, my hometown sheltered war criminals.
Here, black people make it through the resume stage, phone interview(s) written tests and all with flying colours, then after your fourth interview, when they finally meet you for the ‘you’ve pretty much got the position, we’re just getting things in place, now’ you never hear from them. Effectively, in Canada, people end up wasting a lot more of your time.
Agreed OhDear, I was thinking about it and realized I’ve never once heard her criticize the white community (she knows who butters her bread apparently) but she’s always going on and on about the black community.
She doesn’t criticize issues pertaining to different groups, she criticized groups.
Raven suffers from internalized racism. She believes a lot of the racist stereotypes held of black people. She doesn’t seem intent on self-examination. She seems hell-bent on wanting to overcome her blackness. For many, the way to overcome the stereotype is to reject all of it without examining whether there is truth to the stereotypes or whether there is any value in them.
Exactly. Which is why I simply cannot with her.
People have no control over the names their parents bestow upon them and should not be judged because their parents named them Raven or Watermelondria or Blithering Idiot.
People can’t spell it or pronounce my last name and frequently ask me what language it is from and then look shocked when I reply English, not Welsh or Scottish but English. I did a trial recently in which the employee was alleging discrimination on the basis of color and ethnicity, she made a comment that she knew that white European people were getting preferential treatment over her because of their last names. The judge, a Puerto Rican woman who took her Nigerian husband’s surname, asked the woman what she thought the judge’s ethnic background was when she saw her name. The woman had no reply. The judge then told us her sons name was Erik and asked how the woman viewed that name. Again, no reply. We cannot know what or who people are by their names. As the judge in my case pointed out to the woman: “there are far too many Shaquille O’Neals in this world” to think a name is an indication of the person or the person’s background, racially, culturally, socially or otherwise.
Here in the UK, there have been studies showing it starts even earlier than the jobs market. TEACHERS mark down pupils’ work if they have a non-standard name. It’s a class thing. Olivia? Good work. Kayleigh? Sub-standard. Ironically, while black Britons are also likely to have non-standard names and thus also get marked down, names that indicate British Asians, who have a stellar reputation for getting their kids to achieve well in school, get marked upwards, Just like Olivias and Bens and Elizabeths and Matthews. Oh, and don’t have an Irish name. Teachers don’t like those, either.
I think there have been similar studies here in the US with similar results.
Several of the teachers I know cover the names for really personal reasons – if the kid annoyed them recently, they don’t want to take it out on them while correcting the test. Or if something bad happened to the kid, they don’t want their sympathy to factor into the grading of the work (once the work is corrected and there are problems, they may take other steps like a re-test); or if they really like the kid, they don’t want that to factor into the evaluation of the work.
That sounds like a very good response to a very real problem.
Google Kevinism for Germany , same thing
Oh my goodness, Hannah, thank you for that. I learn a new thing every day on here. Lilac – at least it isn’t just UK/US. Small mercy I know, but still.
Well Media Take Out is reporting that ABC has pretty much said Bye Felicia to Raven. They claim she is gone and not to report for work Monday. I guess we’ll find out if this is true tomorrow.
I have to admit with the name Kiaser, my thoughts immediately when to a frat boy,sitting around a messy apartment,playing Grand Theft Auto.
And anyone who works for human resource knows that names no longer matter its the work history you’re looking for. Because Emily might have a homogenized name,but might be a disaster in the work place.
I think in Germany we call this Kevinismus (Kevinism – I guess). It says that, people judge esp. kids by their names. If your name is Kevin, Justin, Chantal, Mandy etc. people (for example teachers) expect the kid to be less smart, difficult in behaviour and that he/she comes from low-income households.
So that Kevin thing is real, huh? I saw a thread about Kevin being a stereotyped name in many countries and wasn’t sure if people were goofing around (there is an in-joke about the name Kevin on Reddit). That is so weird, it’s a pretty standard name in the U.S.
In Mexico that discrimination is also about names which are common for people of lower incomes, and usually those names are taken from English. So here, a person named for example Ryan López or Jennifer Pérez would be discriminated for their names, because a lot of people consider they sound ridiculous in Spanish
@jc126 yes. The Kevin-thing is very real . There is even something called Alpha-Kevin, which means this person is really stupid.
And @Saks: same thing in Germany. English or french names are quite often linked to low incomes and lots of people give side eyes to Kevin Schulze und Chantal Günther. It even goes further – if you have a double name, you are really lost. You introduce yourself as Amy-Chantal or Luca-Kevin and you are done.
There was also a rash of discrimination about the name Gordon at one time. Besides being the name of a rather tasty brand of gin, it was also thought that that particular name belonged to certified morons, and they drove Volvos. Weird I know.
It’s so weird that of all names they would pick Kevin.
This comment is EXACTLY why my parents gave my brother and I American first names and traditional French middle names (I’m half Haitian). My dad said that he didn’t want us to have our names working against us when we got older. So my mom picked our first names while my dad picked our middle names. And while I am glad for this my parents should HAVE to make that kind of decision. Why is it that white people can name their kids dumb shit like Apple and Rainbow but traditional African names are “ghetto”? Miss me with that BS
To be fair I think white kids with offbeat names probably receive discrimination as well when it comes to resumes and such. Apple is actually a popular name in certain Asian countries (Philippines for sure, but the Asian girls I’ve met named Apple were not Philippino)
My Dad did the opposite, he named me a traditional name and refused have anyone mispronounce my name or give me an American nickname. Parents always try to respond to the issue of the discrimination their children will face for things outside their control to the best of their ability but everyone is different.
Which is why it really sucks people are being judged for that.
Lol. I am one of those crazy mothers who wants her daughter to grow up to be the best of whatever profession she chooses. But my husband and I are both lawyers and we would love it if she joins the family business or at least teaches law. So I gave her a name that sounds like a female law professor. I am example of the fact that parents can get really overzealous and dumb in the naming business.
No that’s true. I hate that people are judged for something so stupid and the fact that my parents even thought of discrimination when picking our names. It sucks and yes children cannot control their names
Does anyone else notice that out of all the panel style talk shows, The View is the only one that consistently seems to hire combative morons? It may occasionally get more news coverage for the moronic feud of the week, but it’s not translating into more viewers against shows like The Talk. So can The View just finish it’s race to the bottom and get cancelled so we don’t have to see these harridans anymore? Because it turns out that most folks don’t actually want to watch 4 women shriek at each other after spouting their complete ignorance.
Re having to spell your name:
My last name has five letters and is super easy. Yet I still got so many people asking me to spell my last name that now I do it automatically to save the trouble of them spelling it wrong or asking. My last name is so easy I have no idea why people can’t seem to get it right, but they don’t.
i spell out my name with attention paid to letters that are easily misheard. For example, if my name were Xanadu: “X as in X-Ray — a — n as in nuclear — a — d as in dog — u”. My real name is actually very simple and is an English word but not common as a name, but the first letter is often heard as another letter in realspace and over the phone. Some letters are just that way. So sometimes it’s partly a hearing problem. If they’ve run into that name before, no problem although yours could be a different spelling variant than the one they know. Otherwise, the brain can easily misinterpret even the sounds in your name. I used to write down my students’ names phonetically and ask them to keep correcting me if I said it wrong, since I’m terrible with names myself. Although one student said I was the first professor to say his Polish last name right… But this was a college with more British-type names than I had ever seen before, while I had previously lived in an area with plenty of people with various types of Slavic names including Polish. So it’s just what you’re used to seeing and hearing.
The truth is there are A LOT of people out there who share Raven’s views. There are people in hiring positions who shouldn’t be. That’s how the world is. She is saying what a lot of them won’t openly say but still think. I know a lot of people who use “nick names” on resumes because they won’t get an interview if they put their real name. It sucks but that is the shitty world we live in. Maybe one day this will change…let’s hope.
I do wonder about this. Sometimes I toy with changing my name too, and it’s not really that different or identified with an out-group, but it doesn’t fit into majority culture.
And the truth is that if you your family is from the bottom 10% of the income scale then you are more likely to have a name like “Kevin”, “Chantalle” or “Jay”.
And then you get discriminated.
Many middle class families go for roman/latin names like: Alexander, Christoph, Anne etc.
And then you are less likely to be discriminated.
It is indeed unfair and it is forbidden and should be prevented (for example by not giving your first name in your job application etc.)
The problem is that Raven Symone seems to openly favour discrimination. Is that legal to do that?
The nerve, with her faux french acute accent last name.. Symoné.
Guess she wouldn’t hire Beyoncé (who’s accent is pronounced btw), Lupita…THE LIST CAN GO ON, your name does not determine your capabilities, it’s a NAME. Then the use of the word “ghetto names” too, it’s opposed to names like North and Apple which would be considered “unique”..
You know what’s funny? She played a character called Gariella for SO LONG, her co star was called Aquanetta, for goodness sake..
This is why a few companies in Europe take precautionary measures, you’re resume only has your last name and your credentials: no first name, no picture. You’re hired/rejected based on YOU, and not your name and skin colour.
EDIT: this coming from someone that’s first name has both french and dutch roots, making it somewhat difficult so spell unless you’re from there.
I’m so glad other French speakers see these accents as fake. I hate them but whenever I point it out to non-French speakers, they just waive you away like “oh those silly meaningless marks don’t matter.” Argh, they do, they change the sound!! Why else are they there???
Aww haha, maybe it’s because I actually did take French in HS that I knew accents change the pronounciation and yeah accents are annoying. Either people don’t pronounce them when they should or they add them to words that don’t need them to look fancy.
The worst case of accent abuse concerns the woman with the crazy custody case, Rutherford. I don’t follow her, but this case is so egregious that even someone with no investment in her story is aware of the transgression. One of her kids is named Hermes and the ‘e’ has not an accent grave but an accent aigu over it. It took two people to agree to that. I just– I don’t know.
???
I was just coming on here to say this! Let’s all call her Raven-Symon-AY from now on because that’s how her damn name is spelled.
I guess, to get a job on the View, the first two requirements are to be stupid and ignorant!
She comes off like a moron in the first place, but if she *has* to throw name shade, wouldn’t it be more appropriately thrown at the parents who choose their kids’ names, not the kids who simply have to live with said names?
Many people believe that if you were born in America you should have an American name.
I hope their children are named things like Sealth and Sacajawea then.
“I’m not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea,” said RAVEN SYMONE. That kind of cognitive dissonance is astonishing.” This woman’s self-loathing is palpable. Normally, I would feel for her (and some part of me does), but all the young girls who grew up watching her show and look up to her, the one’s with “ghetto” names, I can’t imagine this makes them feel good. She’s doing not so good things with the platform she has, most likely for ratings. For that, I think she’s an insensitive jerk.
The odd thing is that she said she herself wouldn’t hire someone with a name she didn’t like. She didn’t just say that it’s common for people hiring to have such prejudices. Like Kaiser, I think I’m done making excuses for her.
My reaction to a Watermelondrea would be first to ask how it is spelled if they said it or how it’s pronounced if I was just reading it. I would want to ask how they got such an interesting name, but would have to be pretty good friends before I did…
The wife of a colleague uses her last name (the feminine form of her husband’s very Slavic name, they met in school in Europe) as an icebreaker in her work as a counselor in a hospital (she’s a medical doctor, one of her specialties is relevant for that job). They come into her office expecting to see a very pale Slavic woman, and instead they are facing a very black African woman (from an African country). Well, that gets the conversation going, and she has a chance to tell them a little about herself and it seems to make them more comfortable, maybe because it’s a nice little distraction in a stressful time.
One of the most racist and stupid remarks made by a celebrity. Why does it matter what your name is? She’s saying if you have a “ghetto” name then you are not good enough to work. People can’t help what their parents named them. Why is “ghetto” so bad? Not everyone had the privileged upbringing you did. There are horrible, lazy people who grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths. Those former child stars are so out of touch with reality.
Ignoranus : someone who is both ignorant AND an asshole.
i.e. YOU, Raven. Take several seats,
Ha, ha, how apropos, must remember that definition for future use.
I have a very African name and it was a pain in the ass when I was a kid but every year I’m more grateful to my parents for that one thing which signifies my heritage in such a genuine way (my father was in fact South African) . Especially since so many African Americans are looking for that and try their best to recreate that with mixed results. There are definitely people white, black and every other ethnicity that give their children stupid names, but that reflects poorly on the parent not the child.
Years ago, in one of the Scandanavian countries, weren’t some parents brought to court for giving their son a non-standard spelling of his name? I have a vague remembrance of that.
Some countries are rather controlling of children’s names and legally won’t allow certain names with a bad history (don’t think you can name your kid Adolf Hitler in Germany…) or that are deemed to be humiliating or inevitably destined to cause a child to be mocked. I can imagine some are rigid about spellings also for traditional names. When the name is registered after birth, it can be rejected on various grounds.
The thing is that I think Raven touched a nerve that is based in truth. She is definitely wrong, and before I go on to my point, please understand I do not condone Raven Simone’s values. The point I want to make is that while most people would call her out for this , they don’t look at themselves; their own actions and lifestyles do not reflect an openness/embracing or even an association with working class or poor black society.
A few weeks back, I was listening to a very revealing podcast of “This American Life” about school segregation. The first segment discussed the hostile reaction to the bussing of poor black kids from Ferguson MO into the richer, higher achieving, predominantly white school district. The reactions of not wanting the students there were all strains of “I’m not being a racist but blah blah metal detectors, bad grades, fighting, my kid is not your guinea pig…” Long story short, parents do not want their children to mix with this element they feel would bring down their own children. And let’s be real: who would blame them? Why would they gamble their children’s future, especially when it came to education. The same sort of fight is happening now in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn where the moneyed gentrifying residents are beside themselves that their kids’ school may be mixing in with students from the Projects. People know it’s politically incorrect and racist to describe anyone as “ghetto”, but their actions reflect that they know what this category is, and for many reasons – justified and unjustified – will not mingle with it if they can help it.
Raven is not a wise person, she’s definitely grown up in the Hollywood bubble, but Hollywood teaches you about appealing to the masses. I think she has a lot of issues of self hate and insecurity that may have been out of her control in her formation as an adult. However, she’s blunt about her discrimination in a way that isn’t unfamiliar. Many so called progressives are in denial about this, for example. They don’t want their Emma, Liam or Finn coming home pronouncing “axed” vs “asked”. They want them to be cognizant that these people are underprivileged and that we should fight for equality, but like ebola, do not adopt their lifestyle, food, grammar, etc so stay away.
Let’s be real: to name your kid Chardonnay, Alize, or anything else in that strain – for today – does them no favors in the judgmental, competitve and fearful world we live in. I look on the facebook feeds of the most liberal friends of mine, and I see no friendships or relationships on that reflect any practice of the equality they claim to fight for in the articles they share or the political injustices they complain about. They stay in their artisanal beergardens, snapping picks of their compost and the sweater they knitted. The silence from my conservative friends is deafening. I look at them all and see that I am usually one of very few persons of color in their friends list… I can not tell which is worse: sticking your head in the sand, or politely pitying a group you never reach out to associate with.
I used to also teach classes on the weekend for GED students… a lot of inner city students from Brownsville, East New York, the Bronx.. I had “Watermelondras”… a lot of them. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t feel that associating with these people – with their terrible weaves, overused eyelash strips, and bad grammar – was a good thing for me, even if the association was as their teacher. I worried a lot about how low I was going bc it was a job I needed for the money, and how stupid and trivial I found them bc I came from a very different background. But that was MY issue and my hangup, it was a hang up that I was forced to work through by associating with them. The Watermelondras are all not stupid– maybe not academic intellectuals, but not collectively stupid. I grew attached to many of them, and sincerely hoped that we made some progress to get them to better economic situation. But life isn’t a movie where the ghetto kids get a little college-knowledge and are seen as equal; they will not be seen that way, at least not without a lot more help and immersing themselves in another culture than the inner city or backwood rural. I have no more illusions. If Watermelondra shows up on a resume, let’s not be disingenuous to think that Watermelondra has a chance when her competition is Finn or Emma. She doesn’t. And no, it’s not fair. But the reality is that we live in too segregated a world – culturally and socioeconomically – and we choose it to be that way bc no one wants to gamble their future or their kid’s future. These mothers who name their kids these names that they feel gives them some level of being special or unique. They have no context except the poverty they were raised in, so they think a name like Dasani or Evian is elevating their child. But no one cares or respects or wants to understand that.
The ones who name their kids Watermelondra don’t know what they look like to people outside their world. And they never will, because until everyone who is progressive and conservative, rich, middle class, educated, etc, gets a ghetto friend, or several – or has their lives pass through the paths of them regularly – we stay in this cycle.
And humans have looked down upon those they saw as beneath them – in pity or contempt – for as long as they have existed. I don’t know how we break that cycle except by direct regular interaction.
You are so right, and your views are most illuminating. What the answer is, I don’t know, but I always think that access to a good education is the very first step. Although you didn’t enjoy the job, you get a huge dollop of admiration from me that you tried to make a difference. I am sure there are many students who will always remember your name, and will elevate themselves in some measure because of your hard work. If not for themselves, then maybe for their children. There is always hope for a better world.
Great post. Thanks for shariing.
But it’s so hypocritical. Look at every white middle class moron naming their kid Adysen or Atticus or Kynzlee. These are stupid names. But will their kid face challenges equal to that of Shaniqua? Doubt it.
Also, I really have a problem with exactly the attitude you’ve identified: people who are intolerant of difference. It’s not tolerance when we ask everyone to follow a white middle class norm. That’s not tolerance. What’s tolerance is when you can be different but your difference commands equal respect. You can be of a different culture and still be professional, etc.
I hate these parents who don’t want contact with lower class kids. Too effing bad. It’s YOUR society–all of it. YOU need to deal and perhaps if you felt the presence of systemic racism and poverty, you’d have a larger stake in actually seeking out change.
Everyone is just so MEMEME. Its so myopic and often ignorant–like the person slapping French accents all over their kid’s name and then telling French speakers they’re saying it wrong (can you tell I used to teach middle school in the states?). No, we aren’t. YOU are. But in your world, you privilege your own ignorance and punish that of those beneath you.
The weird thing is that Raven grew up in Georgia, and says her parents tried to keep her feet on the ground. She went to regular schools, sang in church, and graduated from a real high school in Georgia, suffering all the usual miseries of high school… So she shouldn’t have been locked into a Hollywood bubble. I don’t think she always sounded this way, she made more sense when she was younger. What happened? It was probably a big mistake for her not to go on to college, that might have helped. As far as I know, after high school she headed to LA and worked as a model and an actor. In a good university, she would have had opportunities for her ideas to be thoroughly critiqued by a diverse group of people and would have developed her thinking and communication skills. She can say such wobbly things to Hollywood types without any objections.
What an injust and biggoted thing for her to say.
She may have a good point though.
All I can think of is The Restaurant series on YouTube. #GTFOH
Self loathing, thy name is Raven!
This girl with her orange mohawk and black lipstick is unbearable. I can’t look at her and she is mind-numbingly DUMB. I can’t listen to her. Time to show some mercy and END THIS SHOW. They talk a lot, say nothing and create false arguments about nonsense; the audience claps like fools and its just so embarrassing.
I used to respect and enjoy Joy Behar but that’s over now …and Sherrie S. dumb as ….well…you know. Over due for the View to go. I question who is running this show and hired these people..
She maybe self loathing but there are a lot of people who feel this way
My real name is Amélie and yes the accent is necessary for pronunciation though on official forms it never appears because diacriticals confuse American systems. My parents also didn’t name me that to be cool, my father is from France and my American mother really liked the name.
Since I was born more than a decade before the Audrey Tautou movie came out, for about 12 years I was constantly asked how to spell and pronounce it with many people thinking it was a misspelling of Amelia (fun times at summer camp) or Emily. People seemed to like it but just really confused by it. Though I did have people ask me if they could call me Emily because “it was easier.” After the movie came out, it was like some huge revelation to Americans and all of a sudden not seen as unusual and cool. I now get the “Like the movie?” all the time which is fine but not a movie I’m that crazy about.
My sister has it worse though, her name is Sandrine and people always insist on pronouncing it Sand-reen like sand at the beach. It’s actually Saun-dreen. I know French names can be tricky. Oh and our last names not even French people get right so I’ve given up.
LaSqueia’ieshieah isn’t going to like this.