[LordKano]

When black people do it they're seen as aggressive.

Aggressive or "Angry". It takes a bit of conversational judo to avoid such an appearance. I'm a big black guy. (6'2", 255 pounds) It rarely goes well for men like me if we're perceived as angry or aggressive.

When someone starts talking over me, I become not only quiet but still. As close to motionless as possible. I even slow down my rate of blinking. Remaining silent and motionless forces all attention in the room onto the person who is speaking.

It makes them and anyone else in the room acutely aware that this person just cut you off and has breached standard etiquette. At that point, the pressure to be polite usually kicks in "Oh, I'm sorry. You were saying?"

[boothead]

This is a really great communication hack! It's a pretty poor comment on society at large that you've had to mitigate your communication based purely on how people judge your appearance, but thank you for sharing it.

[LordKano]

If one is aware of the biases of others, they can be used to one's advantage.

This happened a little over 20 years ago.

I was shopping at the mall, near Christmas and the place was packed. There were some really long lines and I said to my friend "Watch this", then walked over to some items that were near the item that I wanted to buy. I started picking up, examining and putting back small items that were on the shelf. I was sure to do it in a way that showed I was putting each item back in its original position before moving on to the next one.

In under 90 seconds, a salesperson approached me and asked if I needed help. I said "Yes, I'd like to buy this" and reached for the item I wanted. He proceeded to take the item, carry it to an unused register, ring me up and complete the sale. I was out of the story in 5 minutes while the other people in line had barely moved.

My friend (who is white) looked at me and asked "What just happened there?" and I explained to him that I was taking advantage of racist perceptions to improve my own shopping experience.

[tomp]

Can you explain to me what racist perceptions that were, and why you got what you wanted? I don't have experience that would help me decode that situation...

[DanBC]

Black people are seen as all being thieves. The shop keep assumes thief, goes to investigate, and is subverted to beat the queue.

There's a relevant recent article on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10386387

http://m.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/racial-profiling-via-nex...

[tomp]

Yes, I've assumed as much, but I don't understand why would that make the assistant help him? To get him out of the store quicker?

Also, why was he doing what he was (taking stuff, looking at it, putting it back where it was)?

[LordKano]

I didn't understand all of this at the time, I just knew that it worked. Later, when I worked in retail, I learned why.

Retail employees aren't supposed to stop shoplifters. They are expected to take opportunities to turn potential shoplifting incidents into sales.

I used the perception that the salesperson had of me as a young black male to my advantage. I picked things up and was conspicuous about putting them back in the exact same place to draw attention to myself. I was behaving in an incongruous manner, not necessarily a suspicious one. Basically, I was doing something different than the other people there and that got someone's attention. I thought that they'd assume I was looking to shoplift and someone would come over to "help" me while other customers were still waiting. I was right. Ringing me up right then and there guaranteed that the sale took place instead of sending me off to wait in line where I might just walk out.

[BurningFrog]

He deliberately looked like a shop lifter, so someone came over and got him quickly out of the store, which made both of them feel better.

[harryjo]

Putting the item exactly back in place, is that to increase the clerk's suspicion of shoplifting, or defend against accusations of it?

[LordKano]

To draw attention to myself.

If the norm is for people to put it back close to the same spot, I make sure to do it precisely, because it's incongruous and will draw attention.

My goal was to make them think "What's that guy doing?" as opposed to "I think that guy is trying to seal something."

[pbhjpbhj]

You can pick 2 items if they're small, put one back to attempt to appear like you didn't take anything; works with clothing too. Suspicious behaviour looks suspicious.

[boothead]

That is truly amazing! Deren Brown would approve!

[harryjo]

It's not fair that you have to do this; yet I'm glad you have found a way to mitigate the cost of unfair treatment, and I hope people will curtail their biases in future.

About the not-blinking, though --- that seems like staring, which I would guess would get lumped in with the body language that gets called aggressive. (I'd guess that blinking more makes you look surprised and wounded, which is the effect you are going for in this scenario)

[LordKano]

I still blink but I do it at a slower rate and I deliberately slow the blinks.

I suppose it's more art than science to not appear to be staring but to be blinking less often.

[Kluny]

How often do you do that? Does it work consistently? I'd like to try it and see if it works - I have a problem where when I'm at dinner with my family, the two old men in the room (my dad and uncle) will shout over the other three people at the table, excluding us from the conversation. I wonder if this technique would work, but I have the feeling they wouldn't even notice.

[harryjo]

In an argument, a common technique when someone yells at you is to lower your own voice. It makes the other person angrier and look stupider.

[pbhjpbhj]

I thought the point was to demonstrate you're not being violently aggressive [with your voice at least] and to get the person to have to pay closer attention, ie move in, at which point they risk escalating too much if they continue being very loud.

This to me is a defusing technique rather than an attempt to increase the other persons anger and to humiliate them.

Guess it depends on what you want to get out of the situation: you could adopt a quiet voice and non-threatening demeanour but be highly offensive with your language and probably achieve the ends you mention quite well.

[LordKano]

It doesn't happen often and consequently, I don't have to do it often. I doubt that it would work on family.

[zo1]

I do the same thing. There really isn't any point escalating the situation when someone is clearly being out of line and unfairly interrupting you. It almost always devolves into a shouting match. And then drama ensues, and someone has to mediate to resolve, and so on, etc.

I've also seen others that react in different ways. Some of them react a little too-hastily to being interrupted with some sort of hostile comment (even after doing it others), and don't adapt to the situation. There are some discussions that are lively and very back and forth.

Really, at the end of the day we're all just there to solve problems with good solutions. If you have a good idea, as long as no one is actively blocking/ignoring it, it needs to be considered.