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?"

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.

There's a relevant recent article on HN:

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

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

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

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.

Based on your description you behaved in a suspicious manner.

People don't browse like that in general but shoplifters do - you didn't behave like a "young black male" [ie like any random person] you behaved like a person that the security guards have seen stealing things before, you pick up lots of items, look around a lot, have an accomplice to act as lookout/provide distraction/carry-goods. Small items are great as you can pick two, palm one and then make a show of replacing the other. Similarly in an area with high value goods a shoplifter will "browse" lots of items as they're waiting for their moment whilst a shopper, particularly getting a large-ticket item, will go straight for the item as that's why they came.

Now it might be that they noticed that behaviour initially because you were profiled as suspect based on racial prejudice, but as soon as you enact the behaviour then the response was response to shoplifter behaviour rather than racial prejudice.

I'd be interested if anyone knows about use of CV to flag potential shoplifters based on standard behaviours?? Seems the tech is there to do that.

Had I been a middle aged white guy, it would have been seen as the behavior of an interested customer.

To just put it out in the open, this was a Radio Shack. I have been going to Radio Shacks since I was about 7 years old and looking through all of the hobby electronics. Over the years, I discovered that I could get the attention and assistance of a salesperson at will.

As I said before it could be that you get observed more because of your demographic, but if you can perform a behaviour that gets direct attention then it's not your race or other aspects of your appearance that's causing the staff action.

Just stand where you are and start swearing loudly will work too, you'll get a member of staff, they'll say "can I help you" - it's the usual attempt in a commercial environment to be non-confrontational when really one means "you look suspicious, why are you here" - you then say "please ring this up for me". Chances are they see that will get you out of the store ASAP, which would be their intention during the approach.

I work in a store, it's really obvious when people don't follow standard purchasing/enquiry patterns.

Not at all. What would be perceived as customer interest as a non-minority customer is perceived as suspicious as a minority customer.

Would be interested if you can recreate this as a demonstration; also a video showing the behaviour would be great, I'd certainly attempt a duplicate.

>What would be perceived as customer interest as a non-minority customer is perceived as suspicious as a minority customer. //

I perceive problems with this line of thinking - for example any young solo male at the store I work at is suspicious. Does that mean I'm ageist and sexist? No, just that this demographic is contrary to the normal use of our services; moreover the only major theft we've had was by someone in this demographic.

We might fail to notice someone else stealing because our attention is elsewhere whilst with people in that demographic our attention will be much more tightly focussed; according to our records this has never happened however.

In your opinion is it wrong for us to behave in this way?

Depending on how you define "normal". If you mean acting like everyone else, then absolutely not. My goal was to be incongruous.

If you mean acting calmly and naturally, then yes. I wasn't nervous because I knew that I wasn't doing anything wrong. I wasn't doing anything that would get me in trouble.

We might fail to notice someone else stealing because our attention is elsewhere whilst with people in that demographic our attention will be much more tightly focussed; according to our records this has never happened however.

If you are watching the young males, how can you be sure? What kind of inventory shrinkage do you have?

In your opinion is it wrong for us to behave in this way?

We all have our biases. Whether or not it's wrong is debatable but if you miss a shoplifter because you were focusing your attention on the wrong person, that is your fault.

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."

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)

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

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.

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.

It's kinda like when I can't remember a word, or a person, usually my wife - or a close friend - will have established who it is or what I'm talking about, the word doesn't need filling in to convey the meaning to that particular person.

It also turns up with acquaintances who might broach a topic I'm familiar with, they take a slow pace to allow me to follow - but interrupting demonstrates I know what they're on about and allows them to up the density of the conversation. I see this as beneficial; others detest it I'm sure.

>Stopping people talking over others makes life better for everyone //

Why let someone gabble on if the whole group already is at that level of understanding on the subject though; is that really better?

At what point do you determine that someone is talking over someone or that the person being talked over just attempts to dominate the entire conversation?

I think both behaviours are problematic.

Shouting down is not the solution. Its better done by expressing annoyance, immediately, when talked over. Maybe white males learn this early on the playground. But anybody can learn this.

In my experience, that is by far the less likely. Leaders are called leaders because they lead people who choose to follow. If you're forcing others to follow, you're not a leader, you're an authoritarian. I haven't met many of the latter, but plenty of the former, none of which I would describe as "assertive".

http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias...

When breaking the reviews down by gender of the person evaluated, 58.9% of the reviews received by men contained critical feedback. 87.9% of the reviews received by women did.

Men are given constructive suggestions. Women are given constructive suggestions – and told to pipe down.

There’s a common perception that women in technology endure personality feedback that their male peers just don’t receive. Words like bossy, abrasive, strident, and aggressive are used to describe women’s behaviors when they lead; words like emotional and irrational describe their behaviors when they object. All of these words show up at least twice in the women’s review text I reviewed, some much more often. Abrasive alone is used 17 times to describe 13 different women. Among these words, only aggressive shows up in men’s reviews at all. It shows up three times, twice with an exhortation to be more of it.

>Maybe white males learn this early on the playground. But anybody can learn this.

You're missing the point. The point is the -exact- same behaviors are seen through a cultural lens.

Here's one example:

http://mobile.businessinsider.com/psychology-biases-that-ben...

In 2003, Frank Flynn taught a Harvard Business School case study on Silicon Valley entrepreneur Heidi Roizin to a class at Columbia. Her story is epic: After graduating from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 1983, she founded an early Silicon Valley software company before becoming president of Software Publishers' Association and later serving as Vice President of World Wide Developer Relations for Apple. Then she became a venture capitalist and Stanford lecturer.

But when those Columbia students read her story, only half of them knew her as Heidi Roizin. The other half read the same story with a changed name: Heidi became Howard.

The students reacted very differently to the same protagonist, depending on the perceived gender.

"Although [students] think [Heidi is] just as competent and effective as Howard, they don't like her, they wouldn't hire her, and they wouldn't want to work with her," Flynn later said. "As gender researchers would predict, this seems to be driven by how much they disliked Heidi's aggressive personality. The more assertive they thought Heidi was, the more harshly they judged her (but the same was not true for those who rated Howard)."

In short, men are liked for being assertive, while women are disliked.

That works after you have the job, not before.

I don't think that's a problem with sexism, but with how a person does it. If you're used to talking over others, you usually do it in a "smooth" way, when other people make pauses, or you say something very relevant. On the other hand, when someone gets annoyed that they can't finish, them being annoyed is off-putting, and they also often say things like "let me finish first" when you already know what they will say, so they come off as struggling to gain power and influence.

Edit: I think, on the other hand, that making people communicate faster and dynamically search for the optimal speaker makes communication more efficient and is better for everyone. No shouting needed.

Often times when you think you know what they are going to say, you are wrong, putting words in their mouth.

> Often times when you think you know what they are going to say, you are wrong, putting words in their mouth.

Yes, sometimes, but in average the effect is positive (i.e. the communication is more efficient).

You can certainly be an asshole without being intentional about it :) Try and argue that's not possible!