Reply to Kind of Felt Uncomfortable Because of My Ethnicity On a Tour

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Again, I can't speak for the OP, but they asked where he was from and he answered with his hometown.  At that point if they were looking to get to know him better or looking for common ground he had given them that to work with.  They could have then said "oh I have a sister in Williamsburg" or "one of my favorite places to visit is NYC" or whatever to keep the conversation going.  The weirdness is not that they asked where he was from, but that when he answered they weirdly routed the conversation to random bits of "yay, Asia!" info about their school.

With your post above, PP.  If you asked Kaysone Phomvihane where he is from and he said "Louisville, Kentucky" then that is the info he is giving you to get to know him better.  It would then be appropriate to talk/ask about Kentucky.  If instead you started randomly saying things like "I have a friend from Mongolia!" and "I've always loved Thai food" then it might be reasonable for Kaysone Phomvihane to feel like he was being viewed as a generic "foreigner" rather than as the person he was presenting himself as (just an American).

The point is it is rude to put labels on people that they aren't labeling themselves with at the time.  Yes, they may have been looking for common ground but in so doing they made someone feel like an "other" or  a novelty.  No one likes feeling that way.  That's not inclusive even if it is well intentioned.  In trying to demonstrate that they are accepting/appreciative of cultural differences, they just made a person feel different even though he didn't feel that way when he walked in.  And really if you come across as lumping all Asian cultures together as if they are the same then that's not really appreciative of cultural differences at all, it's just oblivious and kind of rude.[/quote]

Great response!  [/quote]

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