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In the United States today, the population is far more racially and ethnically diverse than in previous eras. With this increased diversity, your audience members are likely to come from a wide variety of racial and ethnic origins. In preparing and delivering your speech, you need to be sensitive to your listeners’ diverse backgrounds and speak to their varied interests. At the same time, however, you must not generalize about particular races or ethnicities. For example, all Americans of white European descent don’t necessarily feel the same way about affirmative action. Neither do all Americans of African descent.

Still, race—common heritage based on genetically shared physical characteristics of people in a group—can affect how listeners respond to a speaker’s message. This is especially true in situations in which racial issues are sensitive, affecting people throughout their lives.

Ethnicity—cultural background that is usually associated with shared religion, national origin, and language—is another important demographic aspect to consider, as it can shape beliefs, attitudes, and values of audience members. A student named Gunther learned this lesson the hard way. Gunther gave a presentation to members of his campus’s student-run Middle Eastern Society and spoke to an audience he was told consisted of students who had fled from Iraq shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2003. Attempting to show courtesy, Gunther addressed his listeners as “Iraqis.”

Only later did Gunther learn that his audience had been made up of Assyrians who had been living in Iraq. Although Assyria no longer exists as an independent nation, there are millions of people who continue to identify themselves as Assyrian. They speak a common language, share religious beliefs, and have their own distinctive traditions and customs. Though many of the Assyrians in Gunther’s audience realized his mislabeling of them as Iraqis was unintentional, they still took offense at being categorized with a group with whom they did not identify. They (rightly) concluded that Gunther hadn’t cared enough to find out about their actual backgrounds. Offended and annoyed, many didn’t bother to listen to much of Gunther’s presentation.