# People do not know how to act around mixed heritage people **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 23, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389 "2011-02-23T22:04:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/141 "2011-02-25T20:38:19Z")
deleted for craziness. ---
**Author:** ![Isabel8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/48db29/32.png) [@Isabel8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabel8)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/142 "2011-02-25T23:02:50Z")
> [@Waxwinged](#): > > Uhm.. As a person who’d been asked the former question multiple times, I’m going to say “BULLSHIT!”. Both questions stem from the same desire to squeeze people into different categories. I heartily agree. I’m another mixed race person who used to get a lot of comments, questions and assumptions when I was younger. I had several cashier jobs in HS and college, and it wasn’t at all unusual for some random customer coming through my line to ask “Where are you from?” “No, where are you \*really \*from?” etc. Sometimes they wouldn’t even say hello first. Of course, I had to be polite to these customers and couldn’t say what I really felt about their questions. I see no difference between “What are you?” and “Where are you from?” More educated, articulate people tend to use the latter phrasing, but the information wanted is the same in both cases. The real question being asked is “Why are you so ambiguous looking? Explain your appearance/accent to me.” In my experience, it’s not meant as a polite conversation starter, but a demand to satisfy the asker’s curiosity. I’m a very reserved person and don’t like the feeling that I have to explain myself to a total stranger. Fortunately, people are more polite and less nosy as I’ve gotten older, and I’m rarely asked about my ethnicity nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/143 "2011-02-26T00:02:34Z")
When I was a cashier at Six Flags as a teenager, a customer said, “You’re biracial, aren’t you?” I said “yes” just because I didn’t want to have a discussion about my race when I had a mile long line to attend to. Sometimes I wish I _could_ just say yes, instead of saying “No, both of my parents are black.” Because clueless people tend not to be satisfied by that answer. Their cluelessness isn’t their fault, I guess. I just wish they were better educated about how race works in the US. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/144 "2011-02-26T00:46:30Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’m not the closest thing to overweight, but I still would find a stranger inquiring about my weight intrusive and weird. Even if they were doing so in a manner that suggested they thought I weighed less than I do. How much do you weight? –Weird and Intrusive Internet Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/145 "2011-02-26T01:35:44Z")
> [@Isabel8](#): > > I see no difference between “What are you?” and “Where are you from?” More educated, articulate people tend to use the latter phrasing, but the information wanted is the same in both cases. The real question being asked is “Why are you so ambiguous looking? Explain your appearance/accent to me.” In my experience, it’s not meant as a polite conversation starter, but a demand to satisfy the asker’s curiosity. Bingo. I can understand, for those who haven’t experienced anything like it themselves, that becoming annoyed by simple questions seems much ado about nothing. There’s no way for a bear to know how it is to be a shark after all, so I get it. I also understand that the person asking me to, once again, identify myself is probably doing so for the first and last time and has absolutely no idea that he or she is simply the latest in a lifetime-long queue of people asking me, in a sense, to justify my existence; at least it begins to feel that way. For me it’s the presumptuousness that sets my blood a boiling; the sense that the questioner feels he or she has an absolute right to know what ingredients were mixed to make me. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/146 "2011-02-26T01:46:04Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Next time you’re in Europe ask some people what they think about the gypsies and see what kind of racism-free paradise it really is. Oh, that’s different, those people really are thieves and parasites.\* But imagine, I’m French and have a little bit of Basque heritage. Tee hee! Imagine! My friends tease me sometimes but it’s all in good fun, so you see, there really is no racism.\*\* \*Irony marked for convenience of the reader. \*\*My obnoxious French impression, sorry, I know that’s probably unfair. I’m just being a jerk to make a point. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/147 "2011-02-26T02:00:52Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Good comment, **j66**. I hope you have an ethnic heritage story of your own to give in return. Ah, well, that might have something to do with my willing to ask others. My story is that there is no story. Well, only half a story. There are some large empty spaces on one side of my family tree. They shone a weird pulsing fluorescent green when we were trying to find an organ donor a few years back. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/148 "2011-02-26T02:10:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Can I touch your hair? > [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Oy. Now you know damn well every non-white person in America, regardless of race or ethnicity, has had to deal with this. . Wait…some folks get _asked_ before people decide to paw at their hair? No fair! I think the next time I’m going to say what I think every time it happens, “Jesus Christ, why are you touching me?!” > [@monstro](#): > > If you’re bold enough to ask someone “what” they are and that person is kind enough to give you a serious answer, do not argue with them. If I tell you that I’m black, you do not have to point out to me that I don’t look “it”. Can I also add that if you decide to **tell** a person what they are, and they correct you because you guess wrong, you don’t get to be all afronted about it? Look, I’m neither all Irish, nor all white. My grampy, who was one of my favorite people ever, came from a long line of brown people from the tropics, so I’m sorry you find it really hard to believe that someone with red hair isn’t 100% European, but both Mom and I inherited amelogenesis imperfecta from him which makes it’s pretty certain that he really is related to us…but thank you for implying in the midst of your objections that my grandmother was a whore. ---
**Author:** ![Isabel8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/48db29/32.png) [@Isabel8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabel8)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/149 "2011-02-26T02:20:04Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > For me it’s the presumptuousness that sets my blood a boiling; the sense that the questioner feels he or she has an absolute right to know what ingredients were mixed to make me. It is presumptuous, absolutely. A few times, I tried replying “I prefer not to discuss that,” but I had to stop because people would actually get angry with me! (Either that, or they’d lecture me on how I should be proud of my heritage. :rolleyes:) My own rule of thumb when talking with someone with an obviously unusual feature, be it appearance, accent, name, or disability, is that I never, ever comment or ask about it, no matter how well I know the person or how curious I am. I know that anything I could possibly think of to say, they’ve heard hundreds of times already. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/150 "2011-02-26T02:34:58Z")
> [@Pullet](#): > > \ For the purposes of statistics, what ethnicity do you most strongly identify with? > \: Mixed. > \: Oh, so you’re half black / half white? > \: Uh, no. There are more mixes than that. _ **Meanwhile, at Chez Turnip…** _ \ Hi, I’m conducting a sur… \: \<_CLICK_\> ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/151 "2011-02-26T03:09:08Z")
> [@Isabel8](#): > > I see no difference between “What are you?” and “Where are you from?” More educated, articulate people tend to use the latter phrasing, but the information wanted is the same in both cases. The real question being asked is “Why are you so ambiguous looking? Explain your appearance/accent to me.” In my experience, it’s not meant as a polite conversation starter, but a demand to satisfy the asker’s curiosity. I understand how you could come to feel this way, and there was [a thread about this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13007771) previously, and no doubt you are precisely correct about some of the people you hear it from. But I can also say, with absolute certainty, that “where are you from” is nothing of the sort to a lot of people. White Americans ask each other this all the time, at least in my cultural context. It’s akin to the “demand” to know the name of the person one is speaking with. (Do you get tired of people constantly insisting on knowing your name?) And again, when I ask where you’re from, that _really is_ what I want to know. I want to know the _place_ that you (not your parents) grew up. > [@Creative answers for a question of "Where are you from"?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creative-answers-for-a-question-of-where-are-you-from/555257/139): > > I don’t make a habit or “avocation” of investigating the origins of everybody I meet. Nor do I ask it of total strangers, out of the blue, ever. But I don’t consider people _total_ strangers after we’ve met, exchanged names and a few words. > … > No, I can’t think of any kind of person I _wouldn’t_ ask this about in a first meeting–not by way of introduction (though I’ve had people introduced to me, and been introduced, on this basis), but at some point, sure, perhaps. More or less as people might ask each other, on first meeting, what their profession was, or whether they had children, or whether they were watching the playoffs. Any of these might come up in some contexts, none is usually essential. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/152 "2011-02-26T03:33:24Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > Remember: one drop rule. > **[One drop rhythm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rhythm)** > > One drop rhythm is a reggae style drum beat. > Popularized by Carlton Barrett, long-time drummer of Bob Marley and the Wailers, the creator is disputed, and it has been attributed to drummers including Barrett, and his brother Aston, and Winston Grennan. > The backbeat is characterized by the dominant snare drum stroke (usually a click produced by cross-sticking) and bass drum both sounding on the third beat of every four, while beat one is left empty. Thus, the expected hit on beat one is "droppe... ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/153 "2011-02-26T03:45:55Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > And again, when I ask where you’re from, that _really is_ what I want to know. I want to know the _place_ that you (not your parents) grew up. Uh-huh. And when I answer Kansas, and am further asked “No, I mean where were you born?” I guess that’s because that’s what they _really, really_ wanted to know. Maybe you’re the one person in a thousand who would stop when I say Kansas. Who knows? Again, what is not being understood is we’ve been getting the same queries throughout our lives; it’s not a one-off. We know the questions, and we know the pattern of the follow-up questions, and yes, there are ALWAYS follow-up questions. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/154 "2011-02-26T04:44:59Z")
**spark** , I don’t mind being asked where I’m from. I get asked that all the time, especially since I don’t speak with a strong regional accent and my stories often begin with, “When I lived in NJ” or “When I lived in Florida”. I understand that kind of inquiry. I ask people where they are from too. What I don’t like is people not accepting the answer I give them because they assume I understand the “real” question they are asking. Like I’m supposed to know “Where are you from?” is tantamount to “Tell me why you look like you do!” The problem is you never know who’s who. The person asking the question could be like you, completely innocent. Or they could be one of those annoying ball-less wonders who think ambiguous-looking = not American. It occurs to me that the people who keep saying BFD may also have a problem with hyphenated nationalities, like “African American”. Why not just say “American”, they ask? BECAUSE THAT’S NEVER GOOD ENOUGH, that’s why. If I say I’m from Atlanta, that my parents were corn-raised in Indiana, and that I have no Ellis Island records showing that my previous ancestors hailed from any other place besides the US, they’ll still ask obnoxiously WHERE ARE YOU FROM!? Simply because I don’t fit their picture of a typical American. So if folks want people to stop referring to themselves as \ American, they better get those people to stop asking every brown person they see “Where are you from?” That question begets hyphenization. ---
**Author:** ![anya\_marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/155 "2011-02-26T06:32:11Z")
I get where the OP is coming from being hispanic , and yet I’m pale enough to have freckles; due to having some mxed ancestry, including a Pennsylvania Dutch great-grandmother. My Spanish is crappy, and some of that is on me, but my father didn’t speak Spanish to me as a child. So yeah, my last name really is, what i say it is, and I’ve gotten enough static about it, that if i had a dollar for everytime i’ve been asked about it … i’d have enough for a great down payment on a house. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389/156 "2011-02-26T18:54:36Z")
> [@TravisFromOR](#): > > How many Filipinos does it take to screw in a light bulb? > > Just two–one to hold the ladder and one to change it. And, see, that’s funny, because the two Filipinos I know are always doing things The Right Way! Hiiiii-larious!!! :p:D:p:D:p:D:p:D _Ooh, now do Fifth-generation Swiss/Italians!_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-do-not-know-how-to-act-around-mixed-heritage-people/572389.md?page=7)