Ethnicity ~ Tuesday, 21 August 2018

Rui Carlos da Cunha, a name few know how to pronounce well, even myself. It took me thirty years to learn how to speak my own given name as someone from Portugal would. So why would I ever get upset when someone butchers my name over the phone or in person. Funny thing, the anonymity when you never see the face of the other. You think you can say anything, act tough or like an ass, what matters most in this world is your own reputation. Mr. Nice Guy or an asshole, does it matter, and to whom, when? Obviously, sometime in the future. The person on the line doesn't give a damn if you lose your shit, all they care about is if they get paid. Whether people are nice or not never matters if you don't get to see their face. Of course, mean people take their toll on someone's sense of decency, a world lacking in compassion never lasts long. But people are people who act as they choose from a script, a role they've played their whole lives, so who cares? It's easy when your name is one everyone knows how to pronounce it properly. But mine is a gift from my mother, whose sense of humor is found in hindsight, after she has done everything a little too right, too perfect to dismiss as perfectly honest. She was a born sadist.