Bigotry

By now most people can get behind the idea that discriminating based on skin color makes you a jerk.

A healthy majority of people agrees that discrimination based on sexual preference is a dick thing to do. Alas, most of those people deny that what they're doing is discrimination, but that's for another post.

Discrimination based on religion is a pretty dick thing to do, too. Of course, if they start trying to push their religion around the workplace then it becomes discriminating against a jackass.

Discrimination based on gender makes one an asshole as well. But some would argue that it's religious discrimination to forbid gender discrimination.

With all this in mind, is it OK to discriminate based on laugh? How about accent or manner of speech?

I ask mostly because of this person across the hall from me. Her and several other people I've come across over the years.

This woman has a laugh like a goose being drowned. Clear up and down the hall you know when she has found something funny because of the very loud HA HONK HONK HONK HONK sound with some gargling sounds thrown in.

When she speaks... well, try saying "OH NO YOU DI'NT" without moving your head back and forth on your shoulders. Now say pretty much anything while moving your hand back and forth in a Z shape while snapping. You know the tone of voice used with those actions. In fact, when you hear those tones you come to assume that those actions are being made. This woman sounds like she has the hand thing going all day long and the neck thing most of the time, too.

I have a strong dislike for this person. It's not because she's a woman. My bosses are, and have been, women, there's women up and down the hall that I get along with fine, heck, I'm even dating a woman. It's not because she's black. I work on an Army base and live in Washington, DC. I'd hate most of the population here if that were the case. I just hate the way she speaks and the way she laughs. No matter what kind of day I'm having, the moment she laughs I wanna punch her in the neck.

I respond to voices that way.

Someone brought a package in for a co-worker one time. When I passed it off he asked me if the guy who dropped it off was black. I blinked and said that I didn't notice. He did sound like he was from Georgia, though.

I credit certain accents with more brains than other accents. Know that bias I try to fight it, but I know I'm not alone. Many people associate a southern accent with a shortage of brains but there are variations that cancel that out and even sound a bit sexy. There's a southern belle saying "Ah do de'clare." and then there's a southern redneck saying "Aye doode claire". It's tough to spell but I think you get what I'm saying.

Then there's the educated British accent and there's the cockney accent. Typically even those with the cockney accent are better educated than a randomly selected American.

Oddly, I don't think more or less of people with Hispanic accents. I just have to work a little extra hard to make out what they're saying. Same thing with most SE Asian accents.

But if someone came to me for an interview that talked like the woman across the hall I'd be shredding her resume the moment she was out of sight.

So, what do you think? Speech pattern discrimination. Jerk thing to do or completely reasonable? Or both?