Associating phone voices with race

Considering i worked over the phones for 3 years, I think i've every right to comment on this issue. For all the years i worked for West, each time a person tried to guess my race,they'd think caucasian. Few times i've gotten asian (i'll say less than 5% of the time.) On rare occasions i've gotten german, it's the only other one i can think off. Most of the time, people think i'm from north carolina or they'll ask which part of the south are you from.

There's been times i've spoken over the phone with people, arranged to meet up and the first thing they tell me when we meet is "i thought you were white." I remember the first time i was supposed to meet Fred, i remember passing by him several times on Snyder and calling him and telling him what i was wearing and yet he said he couldn't locate me. So i went back to north philly, then he came to pick me up and said, i was expecting a white girl.

I've had people tell me "you don't talk black." Now, for those people, i'd like to ask, how is a black person supposed to speak? I've had few coworkers tell me i'm the whitest black person they've seen.

I usually expect patients to pick up an accent but instead they either think i'm from north carolina or from the midwest (Ohio is the most frequent guess). I'm still not sure where the north carolina vibe comes from.

Nevertheless, I've always felt all these people are colored by the stereotypes in the American society. Well, i guess i'm colored, too.

Today a young man called me and I think i coulda put my hands on a stack of bibles and sworn he was black. Did he sound black? I don't think so but he was overly polite over the phone. He called me ma'am,then miss and i don't know but come to think about it, i shouldn't have assumed that cuz i had a white prisoner for a patient the last time and he talked just like that - yes ma'am, thank you, etc. Anyway, guy shows up and out steps a white dude.

Guessing by the look on his face, he was a little surprised my color too. LOL...I guess we're all susceptible to a little misperception or what i call 'coloring' at one point in time. I didn't post the nitty gritty of the details but the whole thing just cracks me up.