Neversays: 25 Phrases You Should Never Ever Say to Keep Your Job and Friends

By Randi Bryant

Most of us arent racist, sexist, or homophobic. Rather, were just ignorant. Weve spent our entire social and professional lives dealing almost exclusively with people who are just like us. So when we go to school or work with diverse groups, we dont have the life experience or the cultural vocabulary to interact effectively with those populations. This can often result in communication missteps that offend. Neversays is your guidebook to learn and avoid these pitfalls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543460193

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Randi Bryant.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2017916255

ISBN:             Hardcover               978-1-5434-6017-9

                       Softcover                  978-1-5434-6018-6

                       eBook                       978-1-5434-6019-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/12/2017

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Neversays

No. 1     I Don’t See Color

No. 2     I Don’t Care if She is Red, Yellow, Purple, or Green

No. 3     America is a Melting Pot

No. 4     There is Only One Race – The Human Race

No. 5     Don’t Play the Race Card / Gender Card / Religious Card

No. 6     Who is the Husband, and Who is the Wife?

No. 7     Sexual Preference / When Did You Choose to be Gay?

No. 8     Your Lifestyle is Your Business

No. 9     We All Have Some Sort of Disability

No. 10   I’m Not Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, But …

No. 11   I Don’t Think of You as (a Person With Disability, an Asian, Gay, Etc.)

No. 12   You are Too Sensitive / Can’t You Take a Joke?

No. 13   Where are You Really From?

No. 14   I Never Would’ve Guessed that You are Gay, Black, Etc.

No. 15   Your People are So …

No. 16   You Aren’t Really / You are Different

No. 17   You are a Credit to Your Race, People, Profession, Kind

No. 18   Wow, Your English is So Good / You Have No Accent

No. 19   You are So Articulate

No. 20   One of My Best Friends Is …

No. 21   When are You Going to Have Kids? / But You Have Kids

No. 22   You Must Be PMS-ing / It Must Be that Time of the Month / Menopause

No. 23   Do You Know How to Use Technology, Email, Twitter?

No. 24   When are You Retiring?

No. 25   Man Up / Grow Some Balls

Epilogue

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

—Maya Angelou

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

—James Baldwin

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Randi Bryant’s sharp wit and insightful analysis find their roots in the combination of her professional endeavors, educational coursework and her personal experience as a Black woman in America.

The earliest seeds were planted as Randi spent dozens of holidays sitting around a large wooden table with a racially, religiously, politically, socio-economically and culturally diverse cast of characters debating and bonding over everything from the consumption of pork, the merits of Reagon-nomics and the space program. In the years since, those seeds grew as Randi became fascinated with the way people -- particularly those who are culturally different -- interact, communicate, work and live together.

This fascination was heightened and refined through her graduate studies at the College of William & Mary which focused on how to maximize learning for diverse student populations. She found this work particularly meaningful due to her own educational experience in which oftentimes she was the only minority in her entire school.

Randi’s professional experience furthered her interest in, and commitment to, cultural understanding and communications. She first worked as a high school teacher in the most diverse public high school in Virginia. Randi then started her doctorate studies at the University of Virginia focusing on the way adults best learn and retain information. While there, she started developing training materials for newly developed technologies during the dot.com era. The excitement of these opportunities lured her to begin working with technology companies on the training and communications surrounding their emerging technologies. She then joined a high-tech company in Northern Virginia where she quickly rose to become the Director of Training and Development.

In 2001, Randi founded and still operates a corporate training company which allowed her to travel the country educating companies, executives and employees on topics including anti-discrimination, communication in a diverse work environment, and how to capitalize on a diverse workforce. Her clients