LogFAQs > #942360523

Giant_Aspirin posted...

i'm white. i admit i have a white bias and my views on racial issues are skewed based on my privilege. but im really struggling to understand how expectations on punctuality is a race thing.

punctuality is a matter of respect for others. when you are expected to be somewhere at a certain time and you are late, you make everyone else wait for you. it's rude.

Everything you said is a cultural thing. That's the meaning you've been taught to place behind punctuality. In other cultures, it doesn't have that meaning. It's more of a loose flowing thing. A meeting that starts at 9 will have people show up at 9:30, and that's just fine. No one feels disrespected, it's a built in assumption when the meeting is made. Life moves at a different pace. Relationships are more important than punctuality.

I know this because I'm from one of those cultures. People assume universality of meaning where it doesn't exist. I know it's cultural because I had to learn one and discard the other. But the meaning here is to meet specific ends, we are much more concerned with efficiency than we are offended that people are placing demands on our time.

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I gotta be righteous, I gotta be me, I gotta be conscious, I gotta be free, I gotta be able, I gotta attack, I gotta be stable, I gotta be black.