| Comment | I think most people understand when it is done in a friendly way and when it isn't but sometimes the lines can certainly get a bit blurred. I once worked in an office that had a lot of staff from all over the place and a woman I worked with mimicked an Indian accent while holding her finger to her forehead to indicate a bindi and half the staff were absolutely horrified and half were like like "eh, it's just a bit of banter", that seemed to be really generational though. To be fair to this lady she was horrified when she learned people were offended and really didn't seem to mean anything by it.
With stuff like that it is important to know when you might be making people uncomfortable even if you really don't mean anything by it. Slagging people for their accent can be in good fun or it can be knowingly a bit aggressive. Fortunately it is usually pretty easy to know what the intent is. |
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