Asklemmy

54665 readers

626 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago

MODERATORS

why is it frowned upon to describe a person according to appearance and ethnic background? (linux.community)

submitted 3 days ago by vestmoria@linux.community to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

On an email with my manager I described a coworker I only worked with once as a small, thin woman that was either born in an East Asian country or has East Asian parents. I don't know this person's name. I don't see a better way to describe her all things considered.

The managers answer: it is disrespectful to describe people according to ethnic background or physical appearance.

My next question for this manager: dear manager, how should I describe this person then?

I don't know if I'm being genuinely disrespectful or this is a very thin skinned manager. Either way, I had to work with another coworker I didn't know either. This conversation with manager B ensued:

manager B: 'today you're working with mike'

me: 'who's mike?'

manager B: 'that fat guy'

make it make sense.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's disrespectful to refer to someone as "the fat guy" too, perhaps moreso.

I'm not sure exactly what you said, but if it was "a small, thin woman that was either born in an East Asian country or has East Asian parents", then that's pretty weird.

It may have also been unnecessary to describe the person at all. It depends on the context.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It’s disrespectful to refer to someone as “the fat guy” too, perhaps moreso.

As a fat dude, I think it's a perfectly valid way to describe me. It's not insulting nor in this case used to be derogatory, it's just a fact.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago

I didn't say it wasn't valid, I just said it's disrespectful. Generally, it is. While you're ok with it, not everyone who's fat is ok with it.