The phenomenon has been intruding on my consciousness for some time, but I never focused on it before. Last week, I had occasion to call up the young man selling Verizon high speed wireless whom I wrote about in this post. He called me “Mister Jack.” It suddenly struck me that other black men whom I have dealt with in a service context have called me that. In fact, the Verizon tech who switched me over from Comcast also addressed me as “Mister Jack.” As I thought about it, I recalled some black women who have used that name as well, like one of my mail carriers.
If any white person has ever called me “Mr. Jack,” I didn’t notice it. The name reminds me of “Gone With The Wind.” If someone calls me “Mr. Marshall” and I expect to have further contact with them, I tell them my name is Jack. I’m not sure what to do about “Mr. Jack;” it’s formal and informal simultaneously, but worse than the dichotomy, it sounds obsequious and submissive to my ear.
Is this a relic of slavery and Jim Crow? It sure seems like it, although I have also occasionally been called “Mr. Jack” by one of the Hispanic auto mechanics who have worked on my cars in the past. “Mr. Jack” makes me uncomfortable, and also confused. Is it a sly rebuke? Do the people who use it also call black men this? The Cuban-American clerk at the neighborhood 7-11 called my wife Miss Grace; so did two African American employees at one of the bar associations I do CLE programs for.
I don’t want to make anyone trying to be respectful and polite feel awkward by making an issue of this form of address, but if this is a cultural habit that has hung around long past its pull date, it needs to be tossed in the ash bin of history.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack
I get this too they call me Mr. Paul. I think it is because many customer service people are overseas in phone banks, immigrants or otherwise have trouble pronouncing last names – even easy ones like Marshall. You can probably guess at how often my last name is mangled by those – even white Americans – who try to say it. Typically they add a variety of extra vowels.
The other reason I expect is that our society seems to frown upon formality such as referring to some as Mr. Lastname or even Ms. Lastname. Heaven forbid if someone uses Miss or Mrs. except when they are trying to get a clerk or servers attention.
Non of this is a holdover to Jim Crow it is merely a practice that has emerged in the realm of customer service practices.
I have the same experience, although I guess I’ve gotten used to people calling me “Mister Bob” (not to mention anyone at all associated with my nephew who all call me “Uncle Bob”).
I wonder if this is a regional thing in the South (I’m in North Carolina)? Or more of a rural thing? Generational perhaps? Or, of course, it could be a relic of the Jim Crow era — if so, one would thing it would slowly be dying out.
I don’t think we see it on TV, or do we? And does that tell us anything?
Definitely a Southern thing, DG. Another Mister Bob!
Could have originated as a southern thing, but I don’t know. Almost all of my ancestral family (at lease recent ancestral family) lived south of the Mason-Dixon line. My generation has scattered north, east and west across the USA.
Yes, a Southern thing. When I lived slightly closer to the equator than I do now, all the children in the neighborhood referred to the adults as Mr. or Mrs. First Name. My grown children to this day will refer to our former neighbors that way.
You think that’s bad; I’ve been called Mr. Ed all my life. Chalk it up to Bamboo Harvester.
Do they at least call you famous?
Of course!
The tremendous black guys in the shop at the Miami International Harvester dealership my dad worked at from 1944 through 1973 always called my dad, “Mister Bob.” They were terribly hard working, super competent Jacks of all Trades. They were indispensable to the dealership’s functioning. My dad respected them. He sold them our used cars when he bought new ones. We visited the families on Sundays in their houses in black parts of town. They’d come to visit our house on Sundays with their wives in their Sunday best.
I’d take it as a gracious sign of respect from a fellow human being. I suspect they are people to whom your humanity and fairness is readily apparent. You can say, “Please, it’s ‘Jack’ not ‘Mister Jack,'” but I wouldn’t denigrate them if they continued with “Mister Jack.”
There are lots of interesting and subtle aspects to black culture. Have you noticed black people make eye contact with everyone when they’re in a shopping mall or otherwise out in public? I get a huge kick out of nodding at black strangers when passing them. They always gladly nod back or otherwise acknowledge a “How you doin?” And black guys invariably also say, “Nice hat” when they walk by. They seem to enjoy chapeaus, which I always wear due to a need to protect my bald pate from the sun.
I am frequently referred to as “Mr. Jim” by health care practitioners of all races and both genders. At the physical therapy clinic where I have been a “frequent flyer” during the past seven years, all the staff call me Mr. Jim except the two therapists that I have worked with since the beginning; Our relationship is now more that of friends rather than only as therapist and patient.
As a Southerner, I always heard younger people commonly refer to older people within their circle of acquaintance as “Mister” or “Miss” whoever, up until the past decade or so. I guess I just think of it as a “Southern thing.” I don’t take offense at it, but I also encourage people to call me by my first name, except for the rare occasion when I want to maintain a more formal relationship. (Officious bureaucrats come to mind.)
I use the phrase “Mr. [first name]” or “Ms [first name]” all the time with my Grandchildren and when talking one-on-one with other small children but usually by the time they reach about 10 years old I’ve intentionally switched to just using their first name. I remember my grandparents doing the same thing with me and I remember my parents doing the same thing with my children.
I would never use “Mr. [first name]” or “Ms [first name]” when conversing with adults and I expect the same in return. If someone addressed me as Mr. Steve, I’d immediately interrupt them and clearly state that “It’s either Steve or Mr. Witherspoon”. Set the standard up front and if the person can’t show enough basic respect to meet the standard, end the conversation.
I’m a bit old fashioned. I’m still a firm believer in showing a level of respect by using “Yes Sir” and “Yes Ma’am” in a very honest and personal way and I do that right up to the point of knowing their name and then I try to use their first name or Mr. [last name] or Ms. [last name], the context of the interaction can be used as a guide.
It’s still a thing, at least here in the South, and not necessarily racist. It’s generally a form of a lesser status person (such as a service person like a housecleaner or hair stylist, etc.) addressing a customer or some other person of assumed superior status. It’s also still common here for children to use it with adult family friends or relatives more removed than, say, aunts or uncles, either in speaking to the person, or being told to interact with them, e.g. “Go see if ms (mizz) Joan will get you a glass of water”.
In the north, it may be more common among blacks because of their regional roots.
The disgraced erstwhile owner of the Carolina Panthers, Jerry Richardson, preferred “Mister.” Not Mr. Jerry, but just “Mister.”
State troopers seem to always use an honorific before your surname when asking you to exit the vehicle, although I attribute that more to habit than respect.
i have never had a “white” adult person address me Mr. First name. But always , without exception Mr.Firstname from any “black” person who is not yet a close personal friend here in the deep south.
Super awkward every time.
We relocated from Rochester, NY to Asheville, NC 7 years ago. I was a bit apprehensive as I was transferring in a supervisor position. The team in Asheville is fantastic, hard working and salt of the earth. All have roots in the area going back many generations.
Some of them refer to me as “Mister Scott”. I was at first taken aback, with thoughts and feelings you so eloquently wrote about. I have adapted to this and am grateful for the respect.
My goal upon arriving here was to one day reach “Yankee” status. I know when they heard I was replacing a beloved colleague, I was a “GD YANKEE!”. I am pretty sure I have moved to “damn yankee”, working to move to “Yankee”…
As a Southerner I laughed out loud when I read your comment… I thought I should let my fellow EA commentor in on these words!
Yankee is not always but often a pejorative. I doubt this is what you really want. An exception being a close relationship that makes fun of you for being a Yankee is usually a positive usage. For example, our family lets the word rip when my brother-in-law only wears sneakers on the beach (he’s from NY). Yankee can also be used as a descriptor, and it can also be used as a forgive them they know not what they do, for example “he’s a yankee, he didn’t mean it like that”. Many Southern people view people from the North as good people but essentially having been raised by wolves but they’re never going to tell you that!
All to explain your Southern colleagues might have been thinking of you as a Yankee the minute you stepped across the threshold, it would just be rude to tell you that.
What you’re really after I’d assume is a “damned yankee”. This is not a pejorative and actually a compliment. It means that you’re a Yankee that’s been in the South long enough, you’ve become acculturated and you’re damned to stay here. It’s a term of acceptance.
I often say Ms. or Mr. first name as a way to be both respectful and casual. My dad was a black man raised in the south so maybe that’s where I get it.
Mrs. Q! I thought it would be great if you were to weigh in on this. Thanks! You’re back!
I perceive it as a sign of respect, much like Spanish and Latin American cultures referring to someone as “don” Miguel or “dona” Mercedes.
When I visited my parents who had retired to South Carolina from New York I was surprised to hear sons refer to their fathers as “sir” and to their mothers as “ma’am”. After 4 years in a military academy I was conditioned to say those same words when speaking to superiors.
Born and raised as an “S-o-B” (it means someone from the reputationally snobbish “South of Broad” Street) in Charleston, S.C. I was trained from infancy to say to everyone other, younger or older, “Sir” or “Ma’am” as a mark of respect. Unless they have shown they don’t deserve it.
“Mr. (First name) is also a Southernism, and less formal. It’s not exclusive to blacks but it’s one form of address that I suspect is dying out as American culture becomes more homogenized.
I also have to note that I’ve met with more and more elementary school teachers and middle school teachers who prefer that the class address them as Mr. First name. I think it’s a way to straddle the “I’m cool and let the kids call me by my first name” and the “I need every ounce of authority I can get over this class” line. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a trend leeching upwards as those young adults use the only civility which was expected of them begin to move out into the world. Either way, I suspect it’s the modern take on respect, and I choose to accept it as such.
I think telling a black person, or insinuating to them, that their way of addressing you is demeaning to them is disrespectful of them. Let them decide how they want to address you. Correcting them is tantamount to saying to them, “Come on, buddy. Respect yourself. Stop with the Step-n-Fetchit shtick.” Let them decide how they want to relate to you.
My sister-in-law calls me Billy, which I’d rather she not do as it’s reserved to my wife (and guys I went to high school with and played basketball with). A few girls in college called me “Willy,” which I really didn’t much care for. A now former and severely Trump deranged woman friend called me “Billy Bob,” which I really disliked as she was not from the South. My great aunt from Tennessee called me Billy Dawson and my brother John Haley. Adding our middle names to our given names, southern style. My brother called me Dawson, my middle name. Who knows why. Bottom line, we just have no control over what people call us.
Why did I just start thinking about this
You can call me Ray — Raymond J Johnson Jr
See and raise:
Paul Simon – You Can Call Me Al (from The Concert in Hyde Park)
My kids and I used to sing along as it played on the radio as I drove them to school in the mornings when the kids were eight and ten or so.
Hello, Southerner here… born and raised. It’s always funny to me how the rest of our fellow citizens struggle with this cultural practice.
Jack this is not a Jim Crow holdover, this is a sign of respect. As I ponder over how to explain the different contexts for Mr/Mrs First/Last Yes/No I realize that it’s a little complex and something you just know. It is absolutely not along racial lines or class lines though. Most of the time if I use Mr Firstname it’s in the context of someone I know/see/speak to regularly but we are not close acquaintances (and this goes double for if they are noticeably older). It’s a show of deference and familiarity at the same time. While Mr/Mrs is not always about age that does play a big role.
As another commenter mentioned this practice was drilled into me growing up and while less common now is definitely still a thing here in the South.
Manners still matter here and the practice of using manners and politeness to strengthen community is a cultural practice that has bonded us for centuries and generations. Perhaps seen from this perspective you might consider the address an ethical act.
Then it is a great example of variations in ethical culture. As a native of the Boston area growing up (and I left my heart in Harvard Sq.) I literally never heard anyone addressed as “Mister [First Name]. Ever. As I said, it hits my ear not as respect, but inappropriate obsequiousness from someone I regard as an equal.
It’s definitely an honorific.
It sounds southern but a child of about 7 years old calls me “Mr. Charlie” at church most weeks here in Rochester NY, in the western part of NY State. Offhand her parents are probably not southerners. “Uncle Charles” would be an alternative thing for the children of personal friends to call me, and that’s been attested, but the “Uncle” thing presumes familiarity.
I recall a lady active in church leadership in Eastern Iowa habitually referred to as “Miss Judy” by all and sundry, not simply by the children. And she was probably under 50.
So, I can imagine the honorific becoming generalized from children to adults.
= – = – =
and it *is* safer, because often it’s not clear how to pronouce last names, and some last names have variant pronunciations either of which can be correct, but only one is preferred by an individual family.
charles w abbott
Rochester NY
It occurs to me that in the colloquial spoken English of the USA, we don’t have standard honorifics that are entirely neutral and universally accepted.
It may have to do with the overly familiar and egalitarian nature of the country, combined with regional varieties.
I could develop this idea further but I’m not certain I could do so effectively. But it’s fun to mention this as a hypothesis.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
In my part of the Midwest, I’ve heard it used in daycare centers by the children to refer to the staff. Staff also refer to each other as Ms. Firstname in front of the kids. I vaguely remember using it myself for teachers when I was very young, but if I had, it would have switched to Mr./Ms./Mrs. Lastname by middle school. I’ve not heard Mr./Ms. Firstname outside of the daycare context.