Asklemmy

54665 readers

243 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 4 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

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You can always say "straight black hair, brown eyes". Hair and eyes and height are common descriptors, and then maybe skin tone if necessary.

Someone who hasn't met someone has nothing to describe them by besides "physical appearance" but that doesn't mean trying to pinpoint their presumed origin.

[–] crapwittyname@feddit.uk 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

You're reaching the fringe of this discussion! So, if he had said "dark brown eyes with epicanthic folds", is that a bridge too far? I think this is where this question gets messy and it's why people tend to either leave it well alone, or just wade in with no tact whatsoever.

It's a bit harsh to imply someone is racist because they use features to describe a person.

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You're reaching the fringe of this discussion!

No I'm not. Quit using the cloud to do your thinking/forum posting for you, it's transparently pathetic.

[–] crapwittyname@feddit.uk 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

What the fuck are you talking about? Why the aggression there, cunto?