I happen to be a ..., I'll have you know! So there!

In My Humble Opinion
21

Several times I’ve been in these situations and kept quiet, seething inwardly and grinding my teeth like some here. There are times when this is the best course of action. This time I’d like to say something, though.

Sounds like a good idea. I might adapt it to suit my needs. :slight_smile:

In any case, Cubans and other Latinos can be blond and blue-eyed in their own right - many Spaniards are, and there was migration to Latin America from northern European countries as well. My husband is Dominican and white, and frequently mistaken for a ‘gringo’ in his own country where whites are a minority.

22

I had a friend in college who didn’t look Latino, and didn’t have a Spanish name, but he was Latino (his mother was Mexican). I had another friend who looked more or less like other white people and had an English first and last name, but who was half Chinese. I learned from them to be careful when assuming things about people’s racial or ethnic background from their looks or their names.

23

That is true…I think, genetically speaking, to be blonde and blue-eyed, you have to get those traits from both sides, since they are recessive, right? So those traits must be lurking on the Cuban side of the family, too.

24

That’s just it, you never know, considering the melting pot we live in. If my husband’s family was like your friend’s (his mother being the Hispanic one), he would have an Irish last name, and no one would ever question it, even though he would be just as Hispanic as he is now. You NEVER KNOW what you DON’T know about someone!

25

One of my co-workers was once talking to another co-worker about athiests. She said she’d never want to be around one of them because athiests were “creepy” and you couldn’t trust them. I sat there, eatingmy lunch, saying nothing as I listened to her go on and on about how athiests are responsible for the moral decay of this nation.

At one point, she asked what I thought. I finished chewing, sat down the sandwhich I was holding and said, “I think you’re wrong. I’m an athiest.”

She looked at me with an expression of shock and horror.* “No, you’re not!”* she gasped.

I took another bite of my lunch and smiled. “Yeah. I am.”

“You believe in* evolution*?”

“I do.”

The conversation ended there. She was utterly astounded that I could be an athiest and she not know it. She had a lot of affection for me and we’d worked together for years. The topic just never came up and I’m not one to offer such information. To her credit, she’s never seemed to hold it against me. Maybe I taught her something just by being me.

26

HA! I had a co-worker once hold up a maternity bra, and exclaim to me: “Oh my god! Look at these babies! Could you imagine wearing something this huge?” I asked her what size it was. “It’s a 36D!” I couldn’t resist. The store was empty, she was laughing and gaping, and I quietly reached into my backpack nearby where I keep a change of clothes (hey, I work around kids and clean up spit and puke and diapers all day, a full change of clothes is necessary!) and pulled out my 40DD for her comparison. Her choking on her laughter and trying to look solemnly contrite as she apologised to me only sent me into hysterics.

Whoops. :smiley:

27

People are often surprised to find that my dad, who with his fair, freckled skin, reddish hair and grey eyes looks more Irish than anything else, is not only Jewish but Sephardi. As a result he’s been privy to plenty of bigoted comments about Jews by non-Jews, and similar nonsense about Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews by Ashkenazim in Israel.

28

I have two ways of dealing with this and they are both honest and neither is meant as a “gotcha!”

I either say, “Really? That hasn’t been my experience at all,” or I ask them to explain what they mean by that phrase that I’ve never heard before, like, “I don’t mean to be a Jew about this…” which I was unaware of until I read it in this thread.

29

I’m enjoying this thread.

It’s nice to hear about other people besides me getting their foot squarily stuck in their mouths. :smiley:

30

One thing that struck me about Cuba this spring was just how diverse the population’s appearance is. One guy looked remarkably like a new coworker of mine - coworker is from Africa. Another girl looked stereotypically German to me, others looked like “typical” Mexicans and one guy even looked Chinese (in fact, his nickname was Chino!). I think I’ve always been pretty good about not assuming things about people (I try, at least!) but that was pretty striking. And I have to say, I feel so wrong having explicitly labeled the people I met as having “looked like” anything at all!

I have had various conversations about the evils of pharmaceutical drugs and their supposed lack of testing (which makes me wonder what they think I do all day in the analytical labs) but I can’t remember specifics. Needless to say, most of the morons who rant at me actually have no idea what goes on in the pharmaceutical industry.

Not quite the same, but Mouse Maven’s post made me think of it… animal rights protesters were stationed outside the university cafeteria a few years ago, with giant signs asking “does your food have a face?” and I got accosted by one person who asked me that, to which I replied “Well, the lettuce in my salad was once a whole head! And nice Birkenstocks!”

The person turned beet red and walked away.

Of course, I know the Birks might not have been made of leather, but her reaction suggests they might have been… isn’t it so cool to hop on the bandwagon at university without really thinking about what it means? Also note that this was at one of Canada’s veterinary and leading agricultural research universities… pretty much everyone that walked by had first hand accounts of what actually happens in animal studies and slaughtering practises, rather than the video from 1959 they were showing!

Ok, I guess that’s a bit of a hijack -sorry! It’s funny, though, so I’m still gonna post it!

31

Semi-related anecdote–only semi-, because the person telling the story was able to identify the most likely to be offended person by sight and ask her (my) opinion before telling the story.
The setting: cubicle area for new graduate students in my department

The cast: a group of grad students, including me–the only female

Context: We were telling stories about stupid people, mostly college related–like how the administration at my undergrad school paid thousands of dollars for a straw structure which was burnt down one Saturday night by some drunken fratboy idiot (I don’t know that the culprit was ever caught, so my description of the culprit may be erroneous on all parts. Still, my audience thought it made sense).

Guy: Oh, I’ve got a good one. (looks at me) How are you about radical feminist whackjobs? (paraphrase, I wish I could remember how he phrased it, because it was pretty clever, in an academic sense)

Me: Well, I don’t think I’m particularly sensitve but . . . (thinking: At this point, I want to hear the story, even if it is offensive to my sensbilities, curiousity would get to me. And I’m not particularly radical or sensitive, but I didn’t want to give him too much of a blank check to be offensive around me.)

Other Guy: don’t push it.

Guy: So anyway . . . (and he tells a story which was not in the least offensive to my feminist sensibilities, such as they are, and which I found amusing, but have never retold, because telling it properly requires the use of vocabulary words which I (almost never) use. Also, it wasn’t that great a story, but good enough I was glad I’d heard it. Certainly, calling the person the story was about a radical feminist whackjob was not out of line.)

But it’s always amused me a little, because because he did recognize that the story was potentially offensive, and he did take care to try to defuse the situation. But given the length of time we’d known each other–I bet things could have been really akward for a while if I’d objected to the story he’d been about to tell.

32

A joke that seems apropos to this thread:

Person 1: Hey, I just heard a funny joke about an X. Want to hear it?
Person 2: I’ll have you know, I am an X.
Person 1: Don’t worry. I’ll tell it really slowly.

I have heard versions where X is members of various ethnic groups and professions. I think my favorite one has X as “experimental physicist”, or maybe my favorite is the one where X is “Norwegian” :smiley: (I’m part Swedish, so of course I tell Norwegian jokes.)

On the subject of people not looking like the stereotype of their ethnic group, I don’t look very Swedish, nor does my co-worker who also has Swedish ancestry, nor does my 3/4 Swedish mother- we are short and have dark hair (well, mine’s dyed lighter now), and my gray eyes are the closest any of us gets to blue-eyed.

33

I too enjoy using such comments. To a real rocket scientist, I’m not one, but to the general public, it is as good a job description as any. (I’m a physicist turned applied mathematician involved with missile tests.) Recently, I was explaining to an insurance company rep that the paperwork filer at our opthamologist had never successfully filed paperwork for a particular procedure with them. This surprised the insurance company rep, and I just said, “Well, she is no rocket scientist.” When we got everything ironed out, I explained that their web site was busted. She assumed I was making a mistake, and I got to add, “Actually, I am a rocket scientist.” (I then showed her what didn’t work.)

On the converse of all the “hidden” hispanics, I’m pretty WASPish, and look it. Technically, I’m not, because I’m more Scottish and French derived, but most include me in the ethnic group. On rare occasions, I have had to say, “Well, I am a WASP, so think about what you’re saying.”

34

I wish I could do that to my dad, but he happens to know that I am neither black nor mexican, and continues to make stupid generalizations. At his 70th birthday party he said something about “the blacks” during the course of a conversation and everybody just kind of looked away, embarassed. No one is agreeing with him, or even acknowledging the comments. But none of us want to argue with a 70 year old man on his birthday about something he won’t ever change his mind about. Sigh.

35

Thank God for my stepbrother. He gently defused the situation last Christmas when an elderly relative made some comment about black people stealing things. I insisted that white people stole things, too and she shouldn’t blame crime on a minority group just because they were disproportionately represented-- I stopped, realizing exactly what you said in your post. I wasn’t going to change her mind after eighty-odd years of thinking one way.

My stepbrother cleared his throat and announced, “No, Lissa. It’s* just* the black people.”

That set us all off into laughter and the moment’s awkwardness was eased.

36

I’m Canadian. I look just like one of you and I speak your language. When someone was spouting off about Canada not going to war in Iraq, I started in. Same when people start bitching about immigrants. I’m a stealth minorty.

Oddly, a few days ago, someone told me that I speak very good English for a Canadian. :confused:

Ditto.

37

I had a tour guide in Australia apologize to me when asking where I was from, because they couldn’t tell Americans and Canadians apart. I thought it was really funny that they seemed to think I would be horrified to be mistaken for a Canadian.

38

My Mum did this to me a few days ago - my parents visited us in Japan for the first time since we bought this house, and though they admired it, they both commented on the odd shape and layout of the house. (It is a VERY weird shape, and pig ugly, but it has a nice garden and a good bright internal layout, and it was cheap, so who cares? We don’t have to look at it!)

We went for a walk and left the house going to the left. Obviously my Mum doesn’t know the area, so didn’t realise I was taking her on a loop walk, so we approached the house from the back on the way home. As we drew alongside the house, my mum said, “Oh look! Another bloody stupid house” I thought she was joking, seeing as it was such a rude comment, and said “Yeah, right” to which she responded “The architecht must have had a field day when he realised there were two idiots in the same neighbourhood” I then realised that she hadn’t actually recognised it as our house, and I did so enjoy her face as I said “Mother - it’s MY HOUSE”. She did laugh though and I enjoyed telling my dad and husband and kids when we got in.

39

In my case, it’s my accent. I have an accent that is basically a generalized Caribbean Spanish, because most of the Spanish speakers I know are Caribbean as is the music I listen to. So, they see “White guy? Caribbean accent? Must be Cuban.” Even the Cubans, lots of times. It’s so funny, cause it’s always the same pattern – we’re talking, their eyes go to my name tag with my middle-American name on it, then they say “¿De dónde es? ¿Es cubano?”, and I always say “Soy de los Estados Unidos; lo aprendí en la universidad.”, then they say some variation on “¡Qué bueno!”.

The other day, I was helping a nice woman with about 5 names send a Western Union to Mexico. I was chattering with her in Spanish, because she doesn’t speak any English at all. I do this with her every couple of weeks – she’s supporting her grandma back home. Anyway, after she had left, I of course switched back to English for my “Can I help who’s next, please?”. When my next customer came up, he said – and I quote – “Wow. You don’t look Mexican.” :confused: I told him that I’m not Mexican, and he said, “Well, whatever you are, your English is very good. You sound American.” :smack: :mad: :smack: In a rare moment, I was absolutely speechless.
It’s so funny to me. I know a lot of Hispanic people, and they cover the entire eye/hair/skin color spectrum. One of my closest friends is a Cuban girl who looks like Natalie Merchant. Another one is this tiny Mexican woman who looks like she walked right out of an Aztec painting. There are the Argentinians, most of whom are descended from Italian and German immigrants from before the turn of the century, and the Dominicans I know – in the same family, they range from being mistaken for African-American all the way to redheaded with freckles.

And more often than anything, the ones that say to them “Funny, you don’t look Hispanic…” are other Spanish speakers.

40

I think this is more on the chance that you’re Canadian and they don’t want to assume you’re American. Not having a go at being American, here, just often it’s frustrating for people from a smaller country constantly having people assume they’re from a nearby larger country. I’m told it’s often annoying for New Zealanders having people assume they’re Australian all the time, so perhaps that situation is what the tour guide was trying to avoid.