Sociolinguistic Artifacts

During this scene of Grey’s Anatomy, Amelia approaches Maggie, who is African American, about a situation where she felt like she may have come off racist. There are several points during their conversation in which anthropological elements are highlighted. One major example is presented when Maggie talks about about how people assume things about her based on her race. She mentions that she approached an airline ticket booth with a first class ticket and the attendant said, “We aren’t boarding coach yet.” Although this isn’t an overtly racist statement, the subtle racist ideas are still present. This example is similar to the statement “You can turn the air conditioning on if you want to” that we talked about during lecture. When we make implicit statements like these, we are giving power to racist ideas without coming out and using actual racist language. We let our assumptions do the talking and reinforce the racial stereotypes that already exist in our society.