it's something about white women...

"hey, girl," said keisha.

"hey, girl," said becky.

now these are the same two greetings, but said by two completely different people. one's coming from a woman with the same cocoa complexion as me, another's been uttered by a melanin-deficient co-worker. guess which one irks me the most?

my co-worker, God bless her, loves to call me "girl." even more irksome is when she calls me "girlie." it's just something about it that bothers me sometimes. i know (or at least, i think) she doesn't mean anything by it. she's a little bit country, a little bit bougie, the kind that's one generation from the backwoods. when this white woman calls me girl, it just makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

or even still, we'll be working on an assignment at her desk (it's our monthly task). her phone will ring, and she'll tell whomever's on her private line, "can i call you right back? i'm working on something right now with the girl in the office."

excuse me? last i checked, i had a name, a first and last one at that. so now i'm just "a girl"? and i also happen to think that i'm a woman, and not a girl. damn what britney spears says. (if you caught that reference, you gotta a little white girl in you, too!)

you may think i'm being too sensitive, but hell, it would drive you nuts when you live south of the mason-dixon line and have a southern accent calling out to you, "whatchu doing, gurl?"