If someone–a white person–persists in not getting why a minority might find something objectionable that they themselves find quaint and amusing, what is the correct way to handle this? You tell me.
At any rate, I haven’t told John or anyone else that his feelings are wrong or unacceptable. I wouldn’t have even responded to this subject if he and others hadn’t invalidated the “where are you REALLY from” issue, simply because they handle similar questions unflappably.
Is it acceptable for you to make up things so you can lecture me for crimes I haven’t committed? I haven’t done any of this, and an honest appraisal of my posts would bear this out.
I’ve taken a fair amount of time explaining my viewpoint with analogies. It’s frustrating to have this patient work of mine negated in favor of focusing on strawmen. What is the point of that, when you could just as easily go after those who’ve come the closest to doing what you are ascribing to me?
Straight white American-born, English-speaking, middle-class males don’t hold a monopoly on saying dumb things. I know that I am prejudiced just like anyone else. And I don’t empathize with every “minority” concern or complaint. I just try to listen and learn. Like, I really try not to lecture people about their feelings. If I can’t be supportive, I just try not to say anything. Or, I try to engage my curiosity about a person’s perception without implying they are being hypersensitive or imaging things. Sometimes a little validation is all a person needs to get over a “microaggression”.
Maybe, maybe not. Just because someone is a white male doesn’t mean they are advantaged in every respect. Most of us have at least one thing about ourselves that marks us negatively, that attracts microgaggressive comments from others in some shape or from. We can draw empathy from this commonality.
I empathize with short men, for instance, because I know they put up with comments all the time that threaten their self-worth. (Comments that are not unlike the kind that black women hear.) This empathy makes me sensitive about off-handed remarks I might say around them. But it’s not like I’m nervous that I might offend them. It really isn’t that difficult to be mindful of my actions and speech, because I don’t have a lot of anti-short guy beliefs in my head to worry about controlling.
That’s not necessary. He’s been posting this sort of self-aggrandizing nonsense for years, and I’m sure posts like this will show up regularly for years to come.
I have a friend who’s a fairly tall woman. We met through my then-girlfriend, now-wife. The woman several times made comments about how she’d only date tall men, and mock-apologized to me each time. I smiled but rolled my eyes internally.
The reason I mention these events, which took place over a decade ago, is that they’re about the only time I can remember someone making short comments to my face. I really don’t think we short guys face the same kind of stuff that black women face. (Unless you’re talking about guys significantly shorter than my 5’5", in which case I dunno).
And even if I faced comments every day–so what? I’m a straight white American guy who grew up in a middle-class family going to good schools. Other than my height and my handedness, I got just about every advantage available. No RPG system in the world would give you enough points to buy a character like me. I’m gonna complain about short jokes?
Well, yeah - hence noting that I was only there a month.
However, even if I was there ten years, it would not transform what is simply a side-effect of being an unusual minority into “aggression”, micro- or otherwise.
To my mind, what people are saying is that they dislike being treated as outsiders by the simple thoughtless inquisitiveness of members of the majority. That’s fair enough: no doubt ‘that shit gets old’.
Thing is, it is rather unfair to transform that subjective reaction into an assertion that the members of the (local) majority are acting “aggressively”. That imputes an intention to cause harm that, I assert, is often simply not there. It certainly was not there when I visited China or Thailand.
The issue appears to be framed as “what you do irritates me - thus it is an attack on me, an “aggression””. I say that does not necessarily follow.
But in the USA, it is there. That’s the whole point. Perhaps not on the part of the thoughtless individual, but the thoughtless individual is reflecting and perpetuating a system that is in place precisely to keep one group dominant, which does in fact harm the other group.
Pretend you were born here (wherever “here” may be for you), and you’ll see why it’s offensive. If you’re actually from somewhere else, it’s different.
Well, I don’t live in the USA, so I can’t really comment on that … local issues are local. I was remarking on the situation in China and Thailand, not the USA.
Here in Toronto at least, some of the stuff you folks have been labelling as “microaggressions” is simply the small change of conversation. It is a quite different matter asking “where are you from?” when over half the population, White or otherwise, are immigrants from elsewhere. In Canada, the real oppressed minority group is the only one who can claim non-immigrant status - namely, Native Canadians.
It isn’t that, I think - I think the irritating bit is the automatic assumption that you are from elsewhere if you look different; that the question is only raised because of that (and would not be raised if you look like the majority).
Again, all depends on the context. In Toronto, half the people no matter what they look like are in fact from elsewhere: ‘where are you from?’ can hardly be ‘aggressive’ where that is true.
As is sometimes the case with threads of this sort, there seems to be a significant discrepancy between the dominant position expressed by posters in posts to the thread, and the results of the anonymous poll attached to it.
Simply being asked “where are you from?” is not a big deal, because it is understood that everyone gets that question. So I suspect you are misunderstanding some nuances here if you think this is what people are complaining about.
The irritating thing is when the asker rejects a non-exotic answer simply because someone’s appearance pegs them as foreign. If a Latino guys says he’s from Austin, Texas and then immediately gets “no, where are you REALLY from?” that shit gets old. Especially when he were born and raised in Texas, speaks with a Texan accent, and his family has been in the U.S. for multiple generations.
No, they are complaining about “Where are you REALLY from?” If someone is asking you this question, it means they are not satisfied with your initial response, even when it’s 100% accurate. And that is annoying.
Again, that’s a response that may well be applicable to your local situation, but isn’t universally so.
Here, a “where are you REALLY from?” question simply means ‘where were you born, and live, or where were your family from, before you came here?’ - which is a perfectly natural question to ask, where about half the population is immigrants from somewhere.
Where are you from? Toronto. No, where are you really from? Oh, my folks came from Nova Scotia/Trinidad/England …
What transforms this into an annoyance is a context in which for everyone except visible minorities, long-time rootedness is simply assumed.
I’ve been asked several times - and ironically, I’m one of the few born right here in Toronto.
Last time I think I was asked this was by a taxi driver this winter. Though what he really wanted was to segue into a discussion of where HE was from. “So, where are you from?” “Toronto” “So, where are your folks from?” “They are long-time residents”. "Oh, well, I’m from Trinidad, and let me tell you, the weather here … " etc.
This just re-enforces that issues like these are local.
In the USA, minorities are often beaten over the head (figuratively) for not fully embracing their American-ness. If I say I am African American, I have to worry about whether I’ve offended the sensibilities of one of these uber-patriotic types who don’t believe in no hyphens.
So being asked “Where are you REALLY from?” always throws me for a loop. Is it a loyalty test? If I say I’m “American”, will I be praised for my patriotism? If I say I’m African American, will I have to endure a lecture about the scourge of hyphenated identities?
For someone else who gets asked that question, maybe their dilemma is different. Maybe they don’t want to say their family is from, let’s say, Saudi Arabia, because they don’t want to deal with the shit that may come with such an admission.
So yes, I agree with you that the question isn’t always loaded. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be irritating all the same.
