I'm trying to be better...

...I really am! People continue to call me the wrong name and I try to rationalize it. I try to put myself in their shoes. But no matter how hard I try, I end up with either feelings of anger or intense sadness. Am I so generic in their eyes that they cannot even be bothered to remember my name? Do they really think all black women look alike? Why can't they just remember, or at least ask me again? I truly have never had this experience before, and it is beginning to color my experience here. It worries me about my professors being able to remember who I am when giving out class participation grades. It worries me about the potential work environment that I could go into post B-school with these (types of) people. Will they not remember my name? Will I be unanimously lumped with the other black women in my office (if there are any)?

And the wild thing here is that its a different person every time. That should make me feel better, since its not just one person continuously calling me the wrong name, but in fact it makes me feel worse. If it was one person, I could write it off as an ignorant person who has racist tendencies. The problem here is that it is many people one or two times. So they make their mistake, but they learn and I shouldn't be concerned, right? Well look at it from my perspective...if out of a class of 300, 5% get my name wrong, that's 15 people. Over the course of 21 days, 15 people have gotten my name wrong...and not just wrong, they've called me the wrong black woman's name (which in my opinion is more egregious). That's almost every day for three weeks. It grates at my very last nerve, and it takes everything I've got not to blow up at each additional person that calls me out of my name.

I'm certain that my reaction boils down to not feeling respected (although I'm sure that's not anyone's intention), but the real question is what do I do about it. Do I continue to be that nerd who wears my nametag everyday? Perhaps. Do I say my name before I ask any question in class so profs and classmates alike remember? Probably not because thats completely obnoxious. But what DO I do? I honestly am at a loss with this one. What a situation! I almost cried on the way home just thinking about it. Blech!