Kind of Felt Uncomfortable Because of My Ethnicity On a Tour

[Anonymous]

It sounds incredibly uncomfortable, OP! I don't think you were over reacting.

[Anonymous]

PP again - and thanks for educating the rest of us who might be well-meaning but at the same time completely thoughtless and act the same way. I could see myself doing that!

[Anonymous]

It's actually an *incredibly well-known complaint*

No actually it was a CNN article - based on an opinion of a comedian who was talking about a movie by another comedian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been in company with a friend who is originally from South Africa and is a naturalized US Citizen. She doesn't have much accent anymore, but she is an immigrant. She knows more about her cultural heritage than I do about mine. And yet, if we're together, people will ask me those types of questions but not her. You don't treat someone who was born and raised outside the US as a foreigner, but you do treat someone who was born and raised inside the US as one, just because of my Asian features.

While you may be just curious and want to learn, read my last line above again. What you are doing is, regardless of how I answer, you will segregate me because of my race, categorize me as "Chinese" and ask me questions about it and assume that I know more about that background to teach you about it. You are saying that what I am is more important than who I am. Whether you mean to or not, that is what you are saying to me.

This is so clearly stated. Unless they're going up to every new parent and asking, "Where are you from?" it is an incredibly biased and uncomfortable situation. Let's be honest. No one was going up to the White families asking that, were they? It's assumed they're from the USA.

I used to ask people with accents where they were from. A friend mentioned how annoying she thought it was so I stopped, and upon reflecting I can see why it's annoying. I wait until I'm friendly with the person and it comes up naturally. If I'm never going to be friends with the person then it's none of my business.

[Anonymous]

How is it any different from asking someone where she grew up, what she does for a living, or whether she's read any good books lately? All those are arguably none of your business either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it any different from asking someone where she grew up, what she does for a living, or whether she's read any good books lately? All those are arguably none of your business either.

You're being tone-deaf. Look, the people who are affected here are TELLING you that they find this kind of question rude and insensitive, and they have explained at great lengths how it connects to issues of race, otherness, and perceived foreigness. You can chose to ignore them, and by doing so you will chose to go on being perceived as rude and insensitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's actually an *incredibly well-known complaint*

No actually it was a CNN article - based on an opinion of a comedian who was talking about a movie by another comedian.

Is this in response to my assertion black women don't like random people to touch their hair? No, you're wrong. It's not just one comedian who has made this complaint. It's a really extremely well known issue for black women. Of course not every black women will feel the same way, but there is absolutely no question it's something that bugs a fair number of them.

Just a sampling from online:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-25/living/touching.natural.black.hair_1_chemical-straighteners-natural-hair-black-women?_s=PM:LIVING
http://madamenoire.com/110548/black-womens-hair-the-publics-touching-fascination-continues/
http://www.racialicious.com/2011/02/17/wtf-files-justin-bieber-touches-esperanza-spaldings-hair/
http://blackhair.about.com/b/2011/07/26/how-touchy-are-you.htm
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/07/black-womens-hair-aint-public-property.html

[Anonymous]

18:03- none of those things have any association with physical appearance. Nor are they topics that tend to be charged - people rarely discriminate based on what book someone enjoyed. It would be more similar to someone asking your age or weight or why you're in a wheelchair or even religion (if you accept that some people make assumptions of certain religious affiliations based on skin color or attire).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"Touch a black girls hair" - OMG - where do you come up with this stuff.

It's actually an *incredibly well-known complaint* of black women that white women ask to touch their hair. You really need to educate yourself.

I chalk this all up again to DC's lack of cosmopolitanism in the upper middle class, and in particular a lack of exposure to Asians. In more truly multicultural places with a bigger Asian population (I'm thinking SF, NYC) it's just UNDERSTOOD that it's rude for a white person to grill a "minority" about where they came from; and it's definitely a faux pas to assume that Asians are some monolithic culture (like, they all celebrate Chinese New Years). It's not like some catastrophic racial slur to do so; it's just understood to be rude.

Ewww. Why would anyone want to touch a stranger's hair if they are not in the grooming or hair business?

[Anonymous]

Not strangers. They do it to friends & acquaintances.

[Anonymous]

I speak with an accent and do not like being asked where I am from
If you do not even want to know my name, why do you want to know where I am from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not to side-track the issue - but how do people ask what ethnicity someone is? I use to be the one that asked "where are you REALLY from?" but have since learned that is rude and is the same as saying they aren't American - which was never what I meant.

You wait until you know them better. You can certainly ask your friends what their ethnic heritage is, but wait until they become your friends.

If you are getting to know someone (colleague, parent of a child in your school) and they are actually an immigrant from a different country, they will often volunteer that information at some point. (Well, back home in S Korea, we did things a different way; We're taking a week off after Christmas break to visit my mother in Switzerland; etc.) If you need to know it'll come up! Otherwise, you wait until they are friends.

How do you ask? How about where are you ancesters from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
How do you ask? How about where are you ancesters from?

If it doesn't come up in conversation, i.e. the other person doesn't comment or offer the information of where their heritage is from, you don't ask. Consider race along with politics and religion as topics that you don't ask about, unless it comes up in conversation. If they're willing to talk about it, it will usually come out in conversation. You don't get to assuage your curiosity by being rude.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses. Many of them are interesting. I must admit though that I'm not convinced the best way to live life is to refuse to ask people questions, for fear of offending them. Yes, it's important to be polite and considerate, and to know that some people may (wrongly) assume you're questioning their "American-ness" when you ask about their background. But that risk has to be balanced against the benefits of getting to know one another better. Waiting for the other person to volunteer everything, or to gauge when I've been "invited" to ask certain questions, is certainly another approach, but ultimately IMHO too much of an impediment.

For me, this discussion probably will cause me to be more careful in phrasing my questions, to further minimize the risk of misunderstanding. I hope that for you, this discussion might help you realize that not every question about your background is an implicit criticism.

Thanks.

Sam2

[Anonymous]

Sam2- your posts on this board are usually very thoughtful and sensible. I find it hard to believe you would ever question a person's origin beyond the answer they gave to your first "where are you from" question on first meeting unless they led the way on that discussion. Basically, I doubt you would ever do something as socially awkward as what poor OP experienced at the school. I don't think anyone is saying that there is no point along the way of friendship where it stops being rude to ask more personal question. At least I wasn't, and I was one of the PPs saying asking is rude. I think the issue is about when to ask. At a meeting in which you are just meeting a person and really the end goal (due to circumstance or otherwise) is just acquaintanceship, the question has high potential to come across as emphasizing differences, not common ground. At the point that a meeting is in the context of a continued road to friendship or with the explicit purpose of getting to know someone better (say a date), the question is far more likely to be perceived as an attempt at better understanding and genuine interest in the whole person.