No One Is Perfect

I have always prided myself on being not only politically correct, but being knowledgeable and sensitive to others lifestyles. Despite my conscious effort to always be 'culturally neutral' there are bumps in the road.

My most recent collision happened during my staff meeting a few weeks ago. Every week, for at least an hour and a half all twelve resident assistants, and our two supervisors meet. These meetings are full of information that could have been easily shared through email so it's up to the resident assistants, to make the time go by with jokes. There are many cultural, racial, or socio-economical jabs tossed at everyone but every once in a while some are off target leaving the group embarrased and confused.

This particular staff meeting was actually the entire two hours long. We had to converse about the new resident assistant applicants, to point out the shortcomings of those who wanted our jobs. One of my coworkers became fixated on one of the candidates. I mean every five mintues, though we had moved on in the meeting, he would say something else negative about the candidate. Finally someone said, "What the hell happened in Tobago?", because my coworker and the new candidate had actually grown up on the same island. I replied. "He must have stolen his cow."

The skeptical chuckles that floated around were not the responses I was anticipating when I blurted out my joke. Not only speaking to, but being friends with Trinis and Tobagonians, I'd heard many stories about how country the island of Tobago is. I even knew some Tobago citizens that lived on farms.

My coworker looked at me and said 'What?', like I was the most ignorant person alive. Luckily, my supervisor changed the subject because we had more things to cover.


I've been aware of word usage because of the experience I've had with others. During training one year the group of resident assistants was discussing why prejudice is so common. Someone responded 'Because people do not realize what is being passed on to them and they don't know any better.' Someone else responded 'That's an ignorant way of thinking. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and can't blame 'being raised that way'".

His use of the word 'ignorant', though correctly in context upset the entire group. When I spoke to him later about how to certain words, he responded 'It's not my fault people aren't educated enough to understand the true meaning of the word.' One word seemed to offended an entire group, despite the stories being shared with derogatory terms.

If misunderstandings can be had between people of the same age, socio-economical group, and education of course they can be had across cultures, nations , and continents. Even gestures are considered to mean different things when you go around the world. Everyone has a different context and when two, or more, people come together unaware or unaccepting of this difference misunderstandings and conflicts arise.