Stop. Learn. Then Move On.

As we start the new year, make an effort to connect with someone new. That’s the best way to learn.

If your Netflix queue is anything like mine, it regularly spits out really random films. For instance, last month the 2006 movie “Flyboys” arrived in my mailbox. Some of you may recall this flick about the first fighter pilots in World War I; it stars James Franco as Blaine Rawlings. There’s one black person in the film, Abdul Salis, who plays Eugene Skinner, a professional boxer and the only American who actually speaks French in a group who volunteer to fight in France.

Skinner bunks with Rawlings after another pilot objects to their room assignment. Skinner asks, “You got a problem rooming with a colored man?”

“I don’t know. You’re the first one I ever seen up close,” Rawlings answers.

“What have you heard?”

“Well, I heard its good luck to rub your head.”

Shortly after this, Skinner tries to enter the pilots’ social club and is told to leave. They didn’t reject him in particular; the entire group of newbies is banned because they have not yet proven themselves. But as they turn to go, another pilot reaches out and rubs his head, saying, “Atta boy, fuzzy.”

Skinner replies with a splendid right hook that knocks his rude compatriot on his duff. When it happened I crowed gleefully at the screen, but that scene struck a personal chord in me. It brought back a memory many years old of an older white man, a co-worker from another office branch, who rubbed my head at the company Christmas party.

When it happened, I was irritated at being inappropriately touched and at having my hair messed up, which is the way I relayed the situation to my sister later. Imagine my surprise when she became furious and insisted I tell my supervisor. After she explained to me what the gesture meant, I realized I had to tell, and I did, reluctantly.

Minorities reporting such misbehaviors sometimes does not produce the intended result. Instead of the supervisor offering understanding or perhaps even an apology, the person with the grievance may be branded a tattletale — a workplace version of the problem child. I took care to make sure my little reveal was not seen this way. Fortunately, my boss was equally appalled. He actually apologized to me — though he’d done nothing wrong — and after I talked him out of relaying the situation to the higher-ups, things went back to normal.