An article ( not on WP) just informed me that telling someone they are articulate can be offensive depending on race…
As a Christian who loves to encourage, receive encouragement and advocates within part of the POC community for social justice, this feels shaming, hindering, oppressive and the opposite of community building.
Any thoughts?
Moccasins at Meadow Arc 
Just another symptom of how confused society is these days. Feelings, acquired by indoctrination, are considered more important than sincere compliments. You are welcome to call me articulate whenever the mood strikes you.
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Thank you Ray! And you are!!..:)
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People are becoming far too sensitive! This isn’t offensive to me! I don’t know why people would even be offended!
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The article is probably right. People nowadays are too sensitive, especially minorities. People need to learn to be open-minded and to receive the message as a whole and in good faith. Sadly, however, there are many who focus on specific keywords and phrases just to find something to complain about.
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Tone too…
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Indeed.
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I would discuss it with them
Living amongst many cultures I learned what may be a compliment to us is very insulting to them
It shows respect to listen to them, apologize if appropriate and adapt ( as long as it is not offensive to Christ ).
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I think…feel that any comment to anyone may and can be perceived as positive or negative depending on circumstances and individual experience. That said, generally speaking, referring to a person of color as articulate can be heard as a barely concealed insult; for the inference is that the person has exhibited an unexpected — due to race or class — linguistic trait.
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That is what the article was stating Paul. So much depends on presentation and where one is coming from. My biological father grew up working the fields up and down the west coast with his family, dropping out in high school so as to help them. He spoke several languages ( first being Spanish) and was an absolutely brilliant man who built a five story home to code without any professional education… that said, a DNA test claimed that I was likely to have lower intelligence and I believe this was due to being Mexican… My mother had my intelligence teated when young and the results stated very much the opposite. To me , this was possibly racist. Comments received about me going back or being sent back to Mexico… are definitely racist.
I guess I can see how telling someone they are articulate in a patronizing tone could be taken as racist..
I tend to have this passion about language and if I think anyone speaks articulately or convincingly or powerfully I love to tell them.. had no idea someone might take it wrong.
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Kimberly, your reply to my reply — in which you share some of the sincerest substance of your human beingness (for which I sincerely thank you) — most powerfully informs (truly, reinforces for) me a life’s posture I seek to embrace and embody daily in my interactions with people. That is, I — when knowing something of a person’s familial and social history — strive to perceive and interpret that person’s words and deeds through that lens. And when I don’t know a person’s history, I have learned to be slow to assume negative intent.
Again, I thank you for sharing some of the richness of who you are.
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