04 Cultural Miscommunication
[A teacher at BYU-Idaho, giving a lecture in class.]
Brother Ivers: Now, another thing I want to talk about too. We're going talk about miscommunication. Okay now, those of you that will be out in the business world or diplomatic world and any sort of field you will have a lot of cultural miscommunications all the time. Miscommunication is rampant between cultures. And it causes a lot of difficulties; it may even cause wars. It can cause murders, it can cause sexual assaults, it can cause a lot of different terrible things. And so, it is very important to understand that miscommunication is always a big possibility. Now, a very common miscommunication, and we have mentioned this before in here, is—you need to understand this—is that for instance people from Latin America tend to be very, very kind and they don't want to hurt your feelings. They are very conscious of not hurting your feelings. Whereas in America unfortunately we are not that conscious about not hurting feelings. We can go to New York or Philadelphia where I am from. But in Latin America they are very conscious they do not want to hurt your feelings they emphasize that a lot. . . [student sneezes.] Bless you.
Female Student: Thank you.
Brother Ivers: And so as a result, by them trying to avoid unpleasant feelings, by them trying to avoid confrontations, sometimes they will do things that will be misinterpreted by Americans. Sometimes they will say—they will tell you yes just to please you because they thought saying no would hurt your feelings. If you have Latin-American employees, sometimes your employees may just stop coming to work without any explanation and you will think, “Why didn't they tell me they weren't going to come anymore,” and it's mainly because they want to avoid confrontations and unpleasant feelings with you. They feel like something is wrong. or they’re upset about something at work, but they don't want to have a confrontation. So, Latin-Americans will try to avoid face-to-face confrontations and make life pleasant and happy. Be aware of that, so if people quit jobs for no reason and things like that, then always be conscious of that and realize what might be going on culturally. Sometimes if they say for example—according to I think it was—we talked about, we were mentioning the famous intellectual Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero. Yes?
Female Student 1: I just noticed something, I don't know if everybody has experienced this but, like, I've met a lot of Latina women or Spanish women that are kind of the opposite—not very non-confrontational. I've met a lot of women who are but maybe it's just like a cross culture between the two, Latin America and also American culture.
Brother Ivers: Like, they are strong women?
Female Student 1: Yeah. Well, they are just very confrontational, like, if they see something you are doing, they’ll come up and tell you about it, and they won't be nice about it. They’ll just say, "This is how it is." Like, what you were doing and “this is what’s bothering me” type of thing. But I don't know if it is just like a cross-cultural thing or something.
Brother Ivers: Maybe she can shed some light on it.
Female Student 2: I don't think that they’re confrontational, I just think they are very passionate about things.
Brother Ivers: That could be. That is very interesting. Maybe passion—we Americans may confuse passion with confrontation, maybe. Interesting point. Because Latin-Americans are very passionate about things. I am glad you brought that up because that is another cultural misunderstanding. Latin-Americans and many other cultural groups have much more passion about what they do than Americans do. And therefore, Americans misinterpret that they’re mad, or they’re crazy, or something like that, and they’ll interpret us as dull, and boring, and without passion and uninteresting.
[He points to a student.]
Male Student: I think it's also important to remember that not everybody follows what is polite in their culture, you know?
Brother Ivers: Oh yeah, that's true.
Male Student: Just because it's polite. In that instance, those people could've just been rude.
Brother Ivers: Yeah, you could have just been working around a bunch of people that were jerks, possibly [said jokingly]. You never know, you never know. Yeah. Because not all people follow their cultural rules, absolutely, yeah.
Now sometimes, for instance, Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero also mentioned in his studies of his own culture, like for instance in many Latin-Americans—now again Latin America is a very big place so it is probably very different in different areas, okay. In some places in Latin America, if someone asks you for directions, and you don't know the right directions, very often—according to Rogelio Diaz-Gurrero—you will get the wrong directions, but you will have a very pleasant time speaking with each other. It is a phenomenon that he describes as pasar un buen momento.
Latin-Americans consider interpersonal encounters to be sacred, special. When you talk with someone else, that is a sacred and special experience, and you should make it enjoyable. You should make it a happy experience, and if you are giving wrong directions, that is secondary. The most important thing is you have a happy, pleasing, fun time talking to each other and having just a good positive experience. Yes?
Female Student 3: We have a lot of tourists that will come to Morocco from Europe, and that happens a lot. Like, when Europeans would ask for directions, and a Moroccan could tell them they don't know where it is, but they will still talk to them forever, and Europeans get really ticked about that. Like, I have met so many French people who would be like—
Brother Ivers: Oh yeah big, big difference there.
Female Student: It’s big, yeah, and I mean, I understand, because the result is the same. They are not going to know. They are not going to tell them anything, but the practice of being nice and actually welcoming them is what is important to Moroccans.
Brother Ivers: Exactly. Exactly. Great! It is amazing the cultural similarities between the Hispanic world and the Europe world. And you know, the Moroccans are actually being nice to those French people. They are being welcoming to those French people, and the French people are interpreting them as being rude.
[Class laughing.]
Brother Ivers: You know what I mean? And again, it is probably, I imagine, Morocco may be a little more polychronic than France, though France is polychronic too. And the French probably see them as wasting their time and whereas in Morocco the most important thing is to have a good experience, a sacred experience.
And so anyway—and again, in a polychronic Latin America, if you give a wrong direction and they go to the wrong place, it's no big deal because it's a polychronic culture anyway, and being behind isn't that important. Punctuality and the schedule is not that important. But having a good encounter, pasando un buen momento, is very important, very important.
And so, that is another area of cultural misunderstanding that occasionally could anger Americans, because they just don't know what is going on. Okay? So, those of you, when you are anywhere in the world—I was talking about Latin America, but apparently it happens in Morocco too—if that happens, don't be offended by it. They are probably trying to be nice. I know it's surprising to us Americans because it violates our paradigms, but they are probably trying to be nice.
Now, and sometimes also, if you are—let’s say you are the head of a business in Latin America and—remember this idea rules—you are talking to some of your people. Let’s say you are in Peru, or somewhere, and you say, “I need this done by 4 o'clock tomorrow.” Will it be done by 4 o'clock?
Male Student: No.
Brother Ivers: They will always say yes. Even if they know it won't be done by 4. Well maybe not always, but very often. Because the most important part is to have a good time, and they figure that you won't care that much if it isn't done by 4. But an American will care if it isn't done by 4, because we’re monochronic!
And so, very often—well, for example, on my mission we wanted to baptize this family, and I told the janitor at the church (that was when they had janitors at church a long time ago—they had paid janitors at the churches) and I said, “We are going to have this family to be baptized. Can you have the font filled by 4 o'clock this afternoon?” And he said, “Oh, absolutely, absolutely.”
We got there with the family at 4 o'clock and the font was empty, hadn't started filling it up. And I said, “Oh, you forgot to do this, but can you have it filled up by tomorrow at 4 o'clock?” Because it takes a long time to fill up the font and definitely by tomorrow, it'd be filled up.
He said, “Oh, yeah, by 4 o'clock we'll get it done.” So, I took the family back. The next day, fortunately, they still wanted to be baptized—you missionaries know how that is, sometimes you worry about these things. So anyway, I brought them back, and the font wasn't filled again. And I said, “Oh, remember, you were supposed to fill this font, you know?” I was getting really irritated, and he said, “Oh, yeah, I'll start filling it now.” And the family, they weren't irritated at all. They were happy to wait around for an hour or two until the font was filled, it didn't bother them one bit. They were perfectly happy, and I was apologizing, and apologizing, and they were all, “Don't worry about it, it's fine, we don't care.”
[Class laughing.]
So anyway, we waited around a couple hours or so until the font was filled, and we did the baptisms. And again, when he was telling me every day that it would be done by 4, so he and I could have a pleasant relationship, and he figured when I got there at 4 and it wasn't done, that I wouldn't care anyway because he didn't know anything about that I'm monochronic and he's polychronic. And neither did you guys know about that until last week or so.
And so again, be aware of those potential misunderstandings, and realize that those people have good intentions. They have good intentions, they are just working off of different paradigms.
[Screen fades to black and a new lecture video begins.]
Now, another thing I want to talk about is for those of you who will do business in Japan. You business people out there, many of you will be doing business in Japan; there’s a lot of important things you need to know about the Japanese, because their world views are markedly different from ours. Very, very different.
There was a book written by Hiroko Kataoka called Japanese Cultural Encounters. If you ever do business in Japan, you need to read Hiroko Kataoka's book Japanese Cultural Encounters, it will help you immensely.
Now, he mentions a few interesting things. He says that—and this is well known in other things too—that when a Japanese person receives praise, about himself or herself or about their children or whatever, they will very often say negative things about themselves. It is a way of showing humility. For example, if someone praises me about my kids, as an American, I will say, "Thank you, thank you. Yeah, they have done pretty well, and I'm real proud of them, yeah. I appreciate that, thank you, thank you very much, that's good."
A Japanese person says—if a Japanese person receives praise about his or her kids, someone says you have real good kids, a Japanese person may respond "They're not that good. They're not that good." Okay? And then the American person will naturally say, "Oh, yes they are! Yes they are! They are good, they are good." And the Japanese: "Oh, they're not, they're not that good."
[Class laughing.]
See? And it's the Japanese way of being humble. He or she really is happy you complimented their children, okay? But the Japanese are very group oriented, and therefore they don't want to stand—they don't want their children to stand out above others, because staying in the group is paramount. Being a member of the group is very, very, very important. And to become a mover and shaker in Japan is dangerous. Whereas, to become a mover and a shaker in America, you're going to climb to the top, man, you're going to go all the way, if you're a mover and a shaker in America. But if you're a mover and a shaker in Japan, you're going to stay down in the mail room your entire career because they believe you need to work as a well-oiled machine, okay?
There is a saying in Japan—and you need to write this down. You guys who are here on time will be blessed by this because you never know, you may see it again, sometime soon [class laughing]. In fact, it may be coming upon you.
There is a saying in Japan that you should never forget when you're doing business with group oriented societies, and this would apply in many societies in Asia and even a few subcultures here in the United States, but for the most part, no.
This is a saying they have in Japan: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
In the United States, the nail that sticks out gets all the rewards. In Japan, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. In group oriented cultures—we’re going to have a lesson on group-oriented versus individualistically-oriented cultures. So at the time, that's basically—that group orientation versus individualistic orientation causes a lot of miscommunications, okay?
Even in the classrooms, okay, when teachers deal with students from group oriented cultures. Another thing too—oh, by the way, let me mention this one thing for you future teachers out there. My wife is a kindergarten aid and she had a student from China. And the student was very intelligent, very impressive, and so they decided that they were going to make this student “student of the week.” And the student was going to have his photo out in the hallway and samples of his work out in the hallway, and all the kids were going to see it. And the student cried, and cried, and cried, because he was going to be “student of the week,” and all his stuff was going to be out in the hallway. And so my wife and the main kindergarten teacher tried to console him, saying, "This is a good thing, this is a good thing." They thought he misunderstood.
Then, all of a sudden, the Chinese boy's parents are on the phone with the elementary school saying, "How dare you make our student ‘student of the week’ and put his stuff in the hallway."
See, that would humiliate him in a group-oriented society, because he would be the nail that is sticking out. Now, they’d be happy if you told them in a personal interview that he was a good student. They would probably say he's not that good [students laughing], but they would still be happy. But when you put him on display for everyone else to see, then they believe that will bring public scorn to him, possibly.
[Screen fades to black and a new lecture video begins.]
Now, another thing with Japanese, those of you who are doing business, negotiation is an important part of business, okay, when you negotiate. And you need to remember something very important about negotiation and that will cause miscommunication. Okay, in—when you negotiate in America, you begin with the point. You start the argument with the point you are trying to make, and then you give justifications for that point. You give support for that point. But you start out with the point you are trying to make, and then you give the justifications, the support.
In Japan they do it the opposite way, okay? They do it generally speaking. If they are very familiar with Americans, they’ll do it the American way; but if they're not, they’ll do it the opposite way. They give the justifications for the point at the beginning; and sometimes, they never get to the point, because you're supposed to understand what the point is, because in Japan, they communicate indirectly.
In the United States, we communicate directly. And we offend many people; because of our direct way of communicating, we offend many people. And there are some subcultures in the United States that are so direct, they will offend the average American; that's pretty direct; because the average American is direct. Like New Yorkers for example, Philadelphians, they're real direct, okay? But see, in Japan they communicate indirectly, and sometimes, you're supposed to just figure out what the point is. And sometimes, they maybe never even get to it, but if they get to it, it will be toward the end of the conversation; and the whole time, the American negotiator is confused, thinking, “What in the world is going on here? What's this guy—where's this guy coming from? Why's this guy just babbling incoherently here? What is he talking about?” But a Japanese person will understand exactly what is going on, they will get the message very, very quickly.
So keep that in mind, we’ll talk more about that as the course goes on, okay? We’ll talk about how this—how some of the Japanese business techniques are based in the tradition of the samurai. We’ll talk about that in another lesson when we talk about business and things like that—I'm just getting warmed up right now—we’ll talk about that some other day.
Now, another thing too, if you do business in Germany. The Germans pride themselves on efficiency. Everything in Germany works on time. Punctuality is much more important there than even here. And everything needs to be orderly in Germany, order is very, very important. So orderly that, in Germany, the professors, like at universities, tend to keep their doors shut, rather than open. As you go visit some professors here, chances are if they’re in, their door will be open. In Germany, chances are their doors will be shut if they are in, because that is orderly. What is a door for if you don't close it?
And so, some Americans working at universities in Germany, some Americans working in businesses in Germany, where people have offices, think, “These people aren't very friendly, they just shut themselves up in their offices. Maybe they're all conspiring against me. Maybe they don't like me because I'm an American.” Because in America, we value being kind of outwardly friendly, and that sort of thing; and in Germany, they’re friendly too, yet we misinterpret what is going on with the doors being shut all the time. And little things like that can cause great miscommunication.
In some places in India—remember India is a big country, a lot of different languages, so very few things are across the border in India—but in some places in India, if you are talking with someone—for example, if you and I are talking and I'm doing this, [Brother Ivers stands with hands clasped in front of him, nodding his head sharply to the student] what does it mean?
Female Student: You agree.
Brother Ivers: It means I understand where you’re coming from, right? We're communicating, yeah. Some places in India, as we are talking—let’s say I'm from these certain parts of India, I'll do this [Brother Ivers nods slowly, rolling his head a little].
[Class laughs.]
Okay? Meaning—saying the same thing as this [nods head normally]. Now see, being an American, you’ll misinterpret what is going on. You’ll think this guy's got something wrong with his neck [class laughs]. Either that or he's, like, crazy! He's a psycho maybe, maybe he's dangerous.
In fact, in some places in the world, they may not do this [Brother Ivers nods sharply again]. I don't know. If the American does this all the time, they might think something is wrong with him [class laughs], he's got a nervous problem or something [class laughs]. But again, these things are easily misinterpreted.
Don't assume a foreigner’s facial expressions mean the same thing in their culture as they do in your culture. Now, in private, we all have pretty much the same facial expressions in private. All people on the earth have the same emotions, and we all have similar facial expressions in private, but public facial expressions can vary immensely.
Sometimes in Asia, when people smile and giggle, they are embarrassed rather than happy. We associate smiling and giggling with happiness, cheerfulness, amusement. Sometimes, some Asians will smile and giggle when they're embarrassed, or they're confused, and that sort of thing. So, just be aware of that if things don't seem to make sense.
Another thing is silence. We Americans are driven crazy by periods of silence, drives us crazy. Oh, by the way, gestures. I got another gesture to tell you about, it's really weird and this lady [he points to someone off screen] knows what I'm going to talk about right?
[Class laughs.]
She is going to tell you I am right—I'm always right anyway—but she is going to tell you I'm right [class laughs]. This is really weird. This lady [gestures to a student] is from Albania; this happens in Albania, this happens in Bulgaria.
In America, what does this mean? [He nods his head.]
Female Student: Yes.
Brother Ivers: Yes. What does this mean? [Shakes his head from side to side.]
Female Student: No.
Brother Ivers: No. In Bulgaria this [nods head] means no and this [shakes head from side to side] means yes.
Female Student: That is so weird!
[Students laugh]
Brother Ivers: Am I right?
Albanian student: You are right.
Brother Ivers: Yeah! Isn't that something? Talk about miscommunication! [Class laughs.] That’s big time miscommunication. And so again, people's gestures may not mean the same things. Sometimes we take people's gestures as an insult, but they’re really not an insult, because of cross-cultural differences. Sometimes people, cross culturally, are insulting us and we don't take it as an insult, you know, because we don't understand. The gestures are all different. Yes? [Points to student]
Male Student: One of the miscommunications I picked up was—in America, we like to say "uh-huh, yeah, yeah" like, you know, we’re listening, we’re agreeing. But when I was in Taiwan, and especially talking with a lot of people from China too, you saying that and people think you're not paying attention—
Brother Ivers: Oh yeah? Wow.
Male Student: —just like, we use it kind of as a filler, like, in the conversation.
Brother Ivers: Yeah, because we don't like periods of silence.
Male Student: Yeah, but they take that as you're just not listening and you're just trying to, like, hurry the conversation along.
Brother Ivers: Yeah, isn't that interesting? Yeah, that’s amazing, I did not know that. What an amazing thing, that we are trying to portray that we are interested in what they are saying, and they are interpreting it that we’re not interested, we want it to move on.
Now, another thing too. In some cultures, when they're over for—when they are visiting your home, in some cultures, it is polite to refuse the first and second offer of refreshment. You offer them, you know, something to drink, something to eat, that sort of thing. But if you really want it, you're supposed to accept the third.
So, in America, if someone offers us something to eat, the first time we say, "Yeah, good, I want something to eat, that’s good, give it to me." [Students laugh.] All right, yeah, especially if it's chocolate, “I want that, I want that!”
[Class laughs.]
Okay, but then in some cultures, that would be considered impolite, rude. And so, you're supposed to refuse the first offer, and in some cultures you're even supposed to refuse the second offer, but if you really want it, you accept the third offer. So, when foreign guests come to your home, you need to offer them refreshments three times. If they say no the third time, then you know they really don't want it. If they say yes the third time, then there is a good possibility they wanted it the first time, but they were being polite. Or maybe you just changed their mind, you don't know for sure.
All right, good. Now, another thing, too, that we need to talk about—oh, no, before we get into this, I want to say one more thing. There are some people in the world that interrupt a lot in a conversation. Especially French, and sometimes it happens in the Spanish-speaking world and other places, Italians, and that sort of thing. And you know something, interruption is a sign of you're enjoying the conversation. Whereas sometimes, Americans will take interruptions as being rude. Where I come from in Philadelphia, we interrupt a lot. And my wife is saying, “You're always interrupting me!” (She's from southern Nevada.) And see, I try to explain to her that I dig the conversation, man, [class laughs] I'm getting into the conversation, but she doesn't understand that, she thinks I'm rude, crude, and unrefined. That's the way she interprets me. She needs to understand the polished, refined gentleman I really am [Student laughs]. [He points to a student.] Yes?
Female Student: When I am listening to people in America talk, they think I'm not listening because I am, like, the only one that doesn't interrupt. Like, everybody interrupts, it drives me insane.
Brother Ivers: Oh yeah, interesting, interesting. So, in America, we must interrupt a little bit. I guess there is an interruption scale: there is extreme interruptions, which bother most Americans; then there's moderate interruptions, which is probably the way it is supposed to be; and then, in your culture, there’s no interruptions, there are very, very few.
We all adjust to where we are on the scale, the interruption scale. There’s millions of scales in culture. It all depends on which level you're at on the scale, in each culture, on each different scale. So, if you are interrupted a lot in your conversation, it's a sign, probably, that they really enjoy the conversation. In France, conversation is an art, and they love to interrupt and get involved in like a game they play, it's fun. So don't interpret them as being rude, okay? Interpret them as they’re enjoying the conversation.
Now, there are some cultures in the United States that miscommunicate all the time; and especially the average, white, middle-class person in the United States would be intimidated by these cultures, and they're not—they really shouldn't be; it's just their communication styles. For example, white people from the Northeast, like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, they are very intense in their communication style. African-Americans, in most places in the United States, are very intense in their communication styles. And so, therefore, white people like me, from Philadelphia, and black people in many places in the United States are often misinterpreted as being scary, and rude, and too intense, and that sort of thing.
In fact, Hall—in another one of his books—said that the average white person in the United States pronounces their—has longer vowels, pronounces their vowels longer than black people. Black people have shorter vowels when they pronounce their vowels, and white people interpret that as more intense. And it can be intimidating to white people because they don't know what is going on, okay?
Another thing, too, interesting about the communication style of African-Americans. See, a lot of white people misinterpret Africans-Americans, and this misinterpretation can bring on racist feelings and things like that, because they think the blacks are bad, they think the blacks are dangerous, they think the blacks are insulting them, but they're really not. It's just that everybody has different communication styles.
For example, let me just talk to you, I'm going to talk to you [points at a person off screen] a minute about American communication style, okay? Now, notice I will—again, when white people talk to each other in America, they tend to follow this pattern, generally speaking, with a lot of exceptions. And I'll say—and white people generally look away when they're talking, and they look at the person when they’re listening; generally speaking. They may do a little bit of both, but they tend to look away more when they're talking, and they tend to look at the person more when they're listening. Okay, so let’s have a conversation.
Brother Ivers: [not looking at the student as he speaks] Well, you know, interesting—nice day out there, isn't it?
[Brother Ivers stares at the student while she speaks.]
Female Student: Yeah, yeah.
Brother Ivers: [looking away] You know, I don't think—May is kind of—I don't think May is normally this nice, do you? [Brother Ivers looks at the student.]
Female Student: No, not really, especially in Rexburg.
Brother Ivers:[looking away] Yeah, Rexburg has pretty bad weather. You know, I've seen snow, like, 11 months out of the year. [Brother Ivers looks at the student.]
Female Student: Really?
Brother Ivers: [looking away] Have you? [Brother Ivers looks at the student.]
Female Student: Yeah!
Brother Ivers: [looking away] You've seen that too?
Okay, now, we will do it a little differently, okay? We’ll do it the opposite way, and African-Americans tend to do it the opposite way. African-Americans tend to look at the person more when they are talking to the person—not continually, but more—and they tend to look away more when they are listening, according to Hall. Hall did some studies on racial miscommunications here, and racial misunderstandings, and actually, it's not really a racial thing, it's a cultural thing, okay?
Now, we will do it this way.
[Brother Ivers leans in close and stares intensely at the student as he speaks.] You know, Rexburg has some—do you think this month is—do you think this month is different than normal weather? [Brother Ivers looks away.]
Female Student: [laughing] Um, yes?
[Class laughs.]
Brother Ivers: [Staring at the student intensely.] How do you think it's different?
Female Student: Uh... [laughs awkwardly again as the class joins in her laughter.]
Brother Ivers: Anyway, that's the typical reaction! That's the typical reaction, see? And so therefore, people and—an African-American talking to a white person thinks, “This white person isn't really interested in what I have to say.” Or “They're not really into this, they think they're better than I am.” And then the white person talking to the African-American person thinks, “Wow, this guy is mad at me, this guy is really, you know, intense, this guy might be dangerous.” When it’s all just misunderstandings, because of simple cultural rules. Because of simple cultural rules, we get into these misunderstandings about different cultural groups when they are all good people! They are all good people with good intentions.
And so, next time you’re around someone like me, from Philadelphia, a New Yorker, a Bostonian, or an African-American, and they are seeming very intense, don't worry about it. They're cool. Okay? Everything's fine. It's just their communication styles that they learned culturally.
Now, I'm going show you a video here in a minute that will emphasize that point. Now, what I want you to do now, for a minute or two while you wake up, is—in your groups, I want you to get together and I want you to quiz each other on everything that we've covered today. Let's use the BYU-Idaho Learning Model and teach each other these principles. And by the way, the Learning Model agrees with the research that says if you review something shortly after you learn it, your acquisition of the material enhances by 50%. So let’s do that in your groups, quiz each other for a while and get woken up at the same time.
[Video jumps ahead a few minutes to when Brother Ivers is about to turn on the video.]
—do not understand them, and they misinterpret it and, therefore, they feel threatened when they should not be threatened; and the same thing with white people from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, same thing.
Now, I'm going to show you an interview—a lot of you have probably seen this interview—and it’s by a guy by the name of Charles Ramsey, and Charles Ramsey is a hero. Charles Ramsey is the one who rescued those three girls in Cleveland. Yeah, for those of you who have not seen the news lately, there were three girls that had been held hostage in this man's house for 10 years. Their parents thought they were dead, everyone thought they were dead. They just disappeared 10 years ago; some of them a little less than 10 years, one of them as long as 10 years. Now, this guy rescued one of the girls as she was trying to escape from the house and saved her, and he's having an interview. Now, notice how he talks to the interviewer and put yourself, if you're an American, middle-class, white person from—not from anywhere except the northeastern part of the United States—put yourself as—he's talking directly, when he looks at the interviewer, assume he's staring directly at you, and think how you might feel under those circumstances, how you might misinterpret where he's coming from.
Remember, he's having a good, happy interview, and he likes the interviewer. He likes the interviewer, he's not mad at the interviewer. All right, here it goes.
[Video appears on the pull-down screen and begins playing.]
African-American Man (Charles Ramsey): —this dude every day. I mean, every day.
Interviewer: How long have you lived here?
Charles: I've been here a year. You see where I'm coming from? I barbecued with the dude. We eat ribs and what not, listen to salsa music, you see where I'm coming from?
Interviewer: You had no indication that—
Charles: I had, no, not a clue that that girl was in that house, or anybody else was in there against their will. Because how he is, is he just comes out to his backyard, plays with the dogs, tinkers with his cars and motorcycles, goes back in the house. So, he's somebody that you look and you look away, because he's not doing nothing except the average stuff, you see what I'm saying? There's nothing exciting about him; well, until today.
[Class laughs.]
Interviewer: What was the reaction on the girls' faces, I can't imagine to see the sunlight and real people—
Charles: Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty, white girl ran into a black man's arms. Something is wrong there.
[Class laughs.]
Charles: Dead give-away. Either she homeless or she has problems. That’s the only reason why she run to a black man.
[Class laughs.]
Interviewer: Charles, thank you for being there man.
Brother Ivers: Now hopefully, you notice that he is very intense, just like, you know, white Northeasterners are very intense; and notice he looked a lot more at the person when he was speaking to him than probably, you know—if the middle-class, white person were doing this— [Brief dialogue as he tries to figure out how to turn off the projector.]
Anyway, like, if I would—if he were interviewing me, I would say, “Well you know as she was—I saw her trying to get out of the house and I was somewhat concerned, you know, and so I decided I would help her out, you know, and help her out a little bit there and be a good Samaritan, you know. And you know, I thought it was weird, I did think it was weird, but you have to be a good person and help people.” Okay? That sort of thing.
But yeah, completely different communication pattern. If you put yourself there, if someone was staring at you as much as he was staring—you know, they don't stare all the time, they do look away, but not as much—and if they are that intense, many white people misinterpret the situation that it is threatening, but actually he is enjoying your presence and having a good conversation, you know? He likes the fact that you are talking to him.
[End]