Interactions with blacks

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Today I had another hard to understand interaction with a person who is black. I went up to this person to get a new plastic keychain card for access to the exercise center because the one I had was coming a part, and I wanted to get a new one before it came apart and I accidentally lost one of the pieces, which would then cost me 10.00 to get a replacement for losing.

This person told me I needed my school schedule to get the change. I repeated what he said, once, asking it as a question, because I didn't know why I needed it.
He kept smirking and glacing at his coworker at the desk. 15 seconds go by with ZERO communication of any sort that is intelligible to me, at least. And then the guy says, "I'm just messin with you." Then he pulls out a form and asks me if I am an active student (and he asks it as if he is sure I am not). It gets filled out and he punches out a new plastic keychain card for me.

Why did he say "I'm just messin with you". Was he lying before? What does this mean? This happens with most if not all of my interactions with blacks at stores and stuff. They say I can't do something, I can't believe it, they say "I'm just messin with you", and then they help me out, albeit reluctantly. Am I missing some cultural thing here?

A few days ago I had to get change from a person at the front desk in another dormitory building, and this person was black. I asked him if they had change (which I knew they did, because I had gone in before and gotten change), and he said no, definitively. And then I stood there for a while until he smirked, and what do you know, he goes and get change!

In a lot of interactions with blacks at my cafeteria and the snack bar at my school... this same situation repeats.

Now I just want to know, why are you guys "just messin with me"? I don't want to offend anyone, I promise. I am embarrased I have to even ask these questions. If it is a cultural thing to lie about something, maybe a form of humor (like that kind of humor in some country where a common greeting is "are you here?") that I should understand. If anyone here is black (American) and an Aspie, much help understand social interaction with blacks would be very appreciated...it just seems like every black person I meet has a chip on their shoulder!

Are you guys posting racist topics *again*?

Wait, what do you mean you don't get the "I'm just messing with you" thing?
It's a common social tactic known as "friendly teasing". I and the people I hang around with at school use it all the time (and most of us are white, btw).
If you don't get it you're in serious need of a social skills workshop.

I agree while at the same time not being a bigot. And with that contradiction of ideas, I will note my 497th post and be on my way.

Clearly I approached this topic from the standpoint of my probable AS, not any racist attitudes. I cannot believe you jumped to this conclusion first.



In high school I started to figure out that social tactic. I thought I got it down. Maybe the situations that I have described illustrate that I haven't. The experiences I'm telling you about now do involve some amount of mischief, at least from my standpoint. The person who gave me change only did so after I pointed out to him, in front of other people, that, yes, they should have change available. After he smirked at his friends, who then left, he gave me the change.

Maybe I do need some major social skills training. I never thought about it, but if it I am truly missing out on some big picture social interaction I should probably get help. But please don't say it so insultingly ("if you don't get it"). I checked and you have AS, but you probably have received lots of help and you sound like you get a long pretty well with a lot of friends and your school. Well, you know, I'm basically going it alone out in the real world, with my AS. I've had zero help for it in school and elsewhere, at least not other than what I am able to figure out intellectually. So, I am asking here the intellectual question, is there some cultural thing I'm not getting? I just want to improve my rapport with people.

It is part of black culture to make fun of each other and insult each other (there's a word for this, I can't remember what it is... "dozens," maybe?). Also I found that when I was in college, the black workers almost always treated me with contempt (I am white). Maybe there is something about a college atmosphere that makes them really sick of whites?

Either way it is part of their culture to exchange barbs and to be harsh with each other... I see it in NT culture as a whole, really, where it is considered funny when someone is hurt or people tease each other "for fun," but it does seem particularly concentrated in black culture, esp. poorer black groups. I live in a neighborhood that is about 50% black so I see this a lot.

I doubt an aspie, black or not, would be able to behave in that manner, as it requires so much vision of social cues, perception of unspoken rules, and spontaneous verbal banter.

haha

It could be considered mildly offensive* that you refer to black people as 'blacks', rather than 'black people'. It comes across as vaguely dehumanising.

*at least in southern England, if not elsewhere.

Hey xon,

I ain't black, but I've spent some time around them. Your post didn't sound racist to me. Expressing confusion is not the same as expressing contempt or hostility. Wars don't get started by people trying to understand what the problem is.

You know how much different the posters on this site are from each other? Individual blacks differ from each other just as much. I think you know that. Plus, it's not like there's this monolithic black culture, anymore than there's a white culture that includes New York bankers and alabama farmers. The people who marched with Martin Luther King and voluntarily got themselves beat up to create a more just society would make sh***y gangsta rap singers, but they're equally black.

Now that I've said all that goody-goody politically correct garbage, I realize there's a difference between black culture and white culture, and I understand what you're referring to.

One thing you might want to consider is restructuring your definitions of truth and lies. Some things that are correct are lies, and some things that are incorrect and intended to deceive are not lies.

Here's how I see it. A lie is when you deliberately say something untrue to get something for yourself at another person's expense. You've surely encountered the half-truth, when a person says something that is technically correct with the intent of leading the listener to an incorrect conclusion. To my way of thinking that's the same as a lie. I ain't going soft. I hate liars, whether what they're saying is true or not.

But there are circumstances where saying something untrue with the intent to deceive is nothing at all like a lie. Fiction is one example. If I'm watching a movie or reading a novel, and I'm constantly aware that it's "just a movie," or "just a book," the movie or book is poorly done. It's a failure. The ancient greeks called this "suspension of disbelief." The novelist or the movie-makers are supposed to completely fool me with their untruth so I believe it's real. That's what I want them to do. I want to smell the ocean when I read Moby Dick. I do not consider these people liars.

Another example of deiberate deceit that is not a lie is political satire. If satire is not close enough to the truth to almost be believable, to string you on for just a little while, it doesn't work as satire. If somebody said "George Bush is concerned about his popularity because everybody in congress started throwing rocks at him," that is too far removed from plausibility to be satire. If somebody said, "George Bush is concerned about his popularity because Dick Cheney invited him to go hunting," that could be satire. A lot of comedy works that way, you get caught up in the story until the punch line makes it ridiculous.

Another example closer to the topic is the "tall tale." A genre of fiction where the story starts out plausible and grows increasingly ridiculous. One of the finest examples of this I've ever seen was on this site, Machine1's post about his marxist lesbian cousin and the dog that ate the pot plants. Mark Twain used this a lot, and nobody hated liars more than Mark Twain.

I don't think there's a sharp line between friendly teasing and ridicule, at least not one an aspie could identify. But you could start by recognizing that when somebody deliberately decieves you, it is often actually an act of friendship, a recognition of you as a human character in one small chapter of their life story, not just a distasteful entity to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible.

From your brief description, it sounded like the guy giving change was actually being a jerk. I won't speculate on his motives, whether it was his childhood, or problems with his wife, who knows. The guy with the keychain might not be the same thing. I'm guessing maybe he picked up on your aspie seriousness and he was recruiting you in that scene to play the straight man in his comedy act. That's not necessarily a bad thing, Abbot got paid much more than Costello, because on Vaudeville, comedians were a dime a dozen, but if you had a good straight man, you had an act. There's no job an aspie is more qualified for than playing the straight man.

Another straight man that comes to mind is Danny Glover's character in the Lethal Weapon movies. What would Mel Gibsons psycho character have been like without him to play off.

I noticed that all the people you described had very boring jobs, so it's not too surprising if they try to amuse themselves to pass the time. If they're including you in the entertainment, that doesn't necessarily make you a victim.

If you think blacks are weird that way, you should try indians. A lot of white people, especially those expecting the silent, stoic noble savage, are confused and offended by the indians constantly teasing them. Most of them don't stay around long enough to notice that they do the same thing to each other. I never saw it as neurotypical cruelty. In the face of the poverty and all the reasons for hopelessness, they have turned a big part of their lives into a comedy routine. I might call it courage, but mostly I thought it was fun.

Keep in mind that if somebody really dislikes you, they're probably going to want to get rid of you as quickly as possible. If they're "messing with you" they're choosing to keep you around in their life longer than they need to. All of them don't hate all of us, even though they know we're different.

My family is made up of almost every race I can think of and we all tease eachother occasionally. I don't notice any particular group that teases more than another.
I think what you experienced was possibly an NT attempt to be friendly. I have had NTs do this with me, and when I didn't get it they told me that because I was looking so serious, they were trying to get me to smile. Maybe if we aren't smiling it makes them uncomfortable? I often have trouble getting the smile part down.

wtf? you did it as well - thats not being 'politically correct'

What someone say. You might be in situations like I've been where I've felt like my normal self and unaware of my facial expression, when that expression might give off the impression to others you are in a very serious or intense mood. And having a little friendly teasing might be someone's way of trying to make you feel more at ease or to get you to lighten up. I'm sure others here could attest to having been misinterpreted because of signals their body language was giving off to others that they themselves were oblivious to you, don't know if that's true of the original poster (who is trolling).

But it's okay to get confused. There are a lot of communication differences, often subtle, that go hand in hand with all the cultures out there. It helps to see the humorous side in the absurdities of multicultural living.

I guess I am overly nieve?but I didnt see anything "trolling" about the post.I have been confused by different things people have said to me....I think it would have been just as applicable if they hadnt mentioned race,because this kind of reply seems more "male humor" then race related.I hang out with guys all the time and they are constantly giving each other "a hard time"...it amussuses them and its there way of bonding as well as establishing pecking order....I dont actually know if females do this because most women wont hang out with me,but I havnt noticed it as much just observing them....their sarcasm seems to be genuinly meant to inflict hurt and embarassment.

psych

I think we have a cultural difference within a cultural difference operating here. I'm not in england, but here, It's never occured to me that the term "blacks" was dehumanising. I never feel a need to say "german people" or "irish people" or "italian people."

One jewish website I was looking at said that using the term "jewish people" was a sign that the speaker was too ignorant to know that "jews" is the proper term for jews.

On a more cosmic scale, my personal response is that when someone is being overly formal and polite with me, it's a refusal to interact with me on a relaxed, me-as-an-individual, you-as-an-individual, ain't-that-other-stuff-that-gets-in-the-way-nothing-but-funny mode. Sometimes superficial rudeness can be an expression of deeper respect and individual acceptance.

Not that I got anything against your limey culture.


Krex

You're right about males a lot of the time, I'd say, but why do other people's actions always have a function? You probably know about when somebody asked freud if his cigar was a phallic symbol, his response: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Suspect you may be right about the gender thing, but I haven't been around enough women to know. Hell of a thing to have to acknowlege.

Thank you for all of your replies, most of which have been pretty helpful. Lae, I think what you said really helps in terms of telling me what kinds of responses I could apply to this kind of situation. It may just be that I need to laugh a lot more in this kind of situation; that might diffuse any tension I brought to a humorous situation by my optin not to laugh. I just don't see the need to laugh when I'm in a hurry and it's taking way more time to get something done and people aren't being honest. But I guess I should just laugh anyway!

I can attest to this!



heh...see i am already being misinterpreted! LOL (i don't know what "trolling" is exactly, seen it used elsewhere, so if someone could enlighten me...)



Could be. Proves I'm not getting out enough, lol!.

First, I'd like to say that this kind of messing with people's heads is very popular with Australians too, of all shades and shapes - not just black ones. Especially with tourists. Just look up "drop bears" and "hoop snakes".

I don't know why USA tourists are so scared of the Australian wildlife when they have mountain lions and grizzly bears back home. But I don't mind helping them be more frightened (messing with their heads).

So these people that mess with xon's head. I think it might be cured with a little bit of social chit chat at the beginning of the conversation, kind of to wake them up, get them interested and feeling benevolent towards you and more inclined to help you out instead of messing with your head. And maybe even pleased to see you next time you go to the gym.

So some sort of exchange that goes like

X: Hi, how you going?

("Wassup?" might be a bit much from an outsider but use whatever the semi formal usual greeting is)

GG (Gym Guy) : Ok - hows things?

X: Ok, except I busted my tag cover and I need to get a new one - I'd be extremely grateful if you'd fix it for me

(this shows xon doesn't take the service guys for granted)

You could also comment on how busy things seem, if it's quiet, empathise if things are a bit slow and boring etc. And be apologetic for interrupting - I know its his job but everyone likes a little appreciation. And when you get your tag back, thank him for doing an excelent job and looking after you.

If you can say something that pokes fun at yourself - like what a clutz you are for damaging the thing in the first place - or how you need all the gym time you can get because you're so unfit/fat/flabby or how crap you are at knowing when people mess with your head - anything that might make the guy smile a bit - he will be more inclined to look after you. He may still mess with your head. But hopefully he'll fix the tag too.

Hopefully "extremely grateful" doesn't imply a financial tip - if he says something along those lines, offer to help out in some way that you can, like - "I'm broke but maybe I could help you with any computer problems or advice?"

With the change guy - I think he may have "pulled your leg" because you asked him if he had any change when you both knew he did. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. So again, a bit of a warm up chit chat and then ask for change - or if it is busy, ask him directly but try to phrase it politely with please and thank you.

And some people are going to mess with you for various personal reasons of their own. I think customer service people are very likely to do this because so many of their customers treat them like dirt. I usually make a joke about stupid customers ruining their day and include me in the category of "stupid customers", it usually lightens the mood if they've just dealt with a difficult customer.