Dr. Christina H Edmondson
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Bus Ride Blues  

3/31/2015

4 Comments

 
Dear Culture Queens:
I am a white woman who was riding the city bus last summer. At the time of the ride, I was on a pretty full bus and was the minority. Sitting close to me were three African American females—grandmother, mother and young daughter (about 4 or 5 yrs old). The grandma and mother were berating the young daughter for asking a question. The young girl began to cry and so the grandma and mother harshly criticized her for crying and kept telling her to stop crying. The girl was obviously crushed and was unable to completely stop crying. I felt so much compassion for the young girl and wanted to reach out to her by talking to her or giving her something of mine (candy or food that I had), but did not feel the freedom to do so since I was paralyzed with the reality of who I was (white) and what kind of response I would get from the older women (who were black). I was frustrated that no one else intervened either!

 What would have been a way to help without offending?

4 Comments
Danielle Escamilla
4/1/2015 12:16:23 pm

What a great response! It has NEVER occurred to me that other cultures need to toughen up their children and prepare them for hard living. So insightful. I used to view situations like that with a mixture of disgust (how can they treat a child like that?), anxiety (how can I help without upsetting the aggressive parents?) and confusion (don't they know that's wrong? Do they not have proper training? Good rolemodels?). I would mostly walk away from such interactions feeling sick and defeated. Having this knowledge makes me look at situations like that with new eyes and makes me want to go out of my way to show kindness to people of other cultures so they know they don't have to be wary of ALL white people.

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Christina link
4/8/2015 11:49:18 am

Thanks for checking out the video! By the way, PBS has two great series that I have showed college students. One is the African Americans: Many Rivers Crossed and the other is Latino Americans. You can watch them for free at PBS.com.

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Susan Rhodes
4/5/2015 10:31:17 am

Christina if you have a newsletter, could you please add me to your distribution list? I love your thoughtful response to the question asked by the white woman. I think your response is an excellent one for all situations where both parties are of different races or cultures. Another approach i have used in the crying child/frustrated parent situation is a variation on yours and also seems to work well across the board. That is to address the child in a way to distract them from crying which seems to defuse things between the parent and child without making any references to my feelings about the adults behavior. If it feels appropriate, I will show sympathy for the adults by rolling my eyes up along with a grin and saying "This is the "fun" part of parenting, huh?" It ends up with the frustrated parent smiling, shaking their head in agreement and chuckling a little.

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Christina link
4/8/2015 11:51:47 am

Thanks, Susan! I appreciate your thoughtful response as well. It's a great way to show common humanity and deescalate negative emotions. I am hoping to add a newsletter feature soon.

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    Your-Humble-Advice-Givers

    Christina is a cultural faux pas magnet.  Questions from people of color and racial majority folks about micro-aggressions and cultural misunderstandings tend to fill her week. Between answering such questions she has served as a mental health practitioner, administrator, educator, public speaker and die-hard family-woman. When it comes to culture, from the funny to the tragic, she has heard it all. Remember cultural competency is a journey so lets journey together.  


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