ABSTRACT
Negro lawyers in the United States sometimes get white clients - when those clients are entangled in proceedings which they feel might shame them in front of a white lawyer. Also in America, in some southern states, whites will be addressed by Negroes using their first names - just so long as no other white is around; when whites return, so does the 'mistering' (Goffman, 1968). Latin Americans, who customarily talk to each other with their heads only a few inches apart, have been known to climb over chairs, typewriters and the office flowers to speak in this way to the American or British businessman firmly barricaded behind his desk.
