My daughter’s white apparently, except around white people then it’s … you can’t be white, your dad’s black. :smack:
A lot of people see mixed-race or ethnically ambiguous people sort of as puzzles to be solved. It’s like they need to know how to categorize them racially in order to know how to relate to them. Do I treat them as black, as white as Hispanic? Just relating to their individual personaliies without reference to a racial categorization doesn’t seem to occur to them - at least not initially. After they get to know somebody, I think they do tend to drop the instinctive compartmentalization, but it’s like they have some kind of psychological discomfort if they don’t have that starting point.
It’s usually not malicious, just clueless. I don’t know of a good way to handle it. Maybe tell them you’re from Atlantis or something.
Oh, I’m sure the old bat who told me it’s immoral for me, a white American, to even talk to a Korean woman was very well-intentioned. Some folks need a dose of reality to wake them up to their prejudice. And sometimes that dose isn’t all cute, cuddly, sweet words.
“Ssshh! I’m trying to pass.”
Yes, and I think that’s why the question bugs me. I always feel like there’s a “wrong” answer to their question. What misconception am I busting by telling them the truth? If they find out that I’m not the result of biracial parentage, but just inherited admixture, will I no longer be interesting to them? If I say I’m black and just leave it at that, will I come across as being obtuse? Should I launch into a dissertation into my family geneology, a small fraction of which is known to me? Will I look like an idiot for not knowing exactly why I’m lemon-colored and not milk chocolate? It’s a question wrought with pitfalls. It doesn’t make for good small talk banter.
I remember having a teacher in high school who was a racial enigma to everyone. He was the type of guy you wouldn’t dare ask “What ARE you?!”, so no one, AFAIK, knew. From the lofty vantage point of adulthood and having read his obituary, my hypothesis is that he was a very light-skinned black guy, no doubt descended from other light-skinned black people. He may have been trying to pass, I don’t know. So I understand the curiousity about ambiguous-looking people. Curiosity is fine. Interogation isn’t.
This isn’t just a racial thing. I get this all the time because I am British. No one calls us hard workers, though… 
I usually get “all you English sound so smart.”
Yes.
Not necessarily.
Sometimes people just want to know where that interesting combination of cheek-bones and jaw line comes from. I have been known to ask people ‘what’ they are, usually because of interesting bone structure, or, sue me, attractive coloring.
I usually ask permission to ask a personal question, then phrase the question itself a bit formally; people usually answer, somewhat warily, and I thank them for indulging my curiosity and make a polite comment about their appearance.
However, if they pretend to misunderstand (“I’m from Atlanta”), I worry that if I just murmur “oh”, they will assume I am only interested in categorizing them, so I have to clarify I was asking about ethnic not national hertigage.
If asked why I want to know, I mention the interesting bone structure.
If told “I don’t know”, I mention there’s a mystery or two in my family tree, and recommend they research bone-marrow registration. (Some genetic mixes are incredibly hard to match.)
If told, “I prefer not to discuss that”, I beg pardon and ask if they listened to Morning Edition that day.
Mind you, these are not random strangers at the bus stop, but people I’ve know for a couple of months. Sometimes people are just a little curious.
(And I don’t really say “What are you?”)
Seriously, you think it’s “pretending to misunderstand” if monstro answers honestly when someone asks her where she’s from? She’s from Atlanta, what the hell else is she supposed to say?
I’m a white girl in the US, so this kind of thing doesn’t happen to me all that often, but I used to be an expat and I’ve had a lot of people ask me very blunt things about my origin, and it’s tiresome. Each individual person is not ill-intentioned, but I’m not a fucking saint, after the fiftieth person asks me a stupid question about where I’m from, I’m not going to be as good-humored as I was with the first person.
“Where are you from, monstro?”
“Atlanta.”
“No. Where are you really from?”
Now, who is the idiot in the conversation? The person who has answered the question or the person who is asking a question but is not satisfied with the response and doesn’t have the balls to ask what they really want to ask.
And I’m sorry, when it’s a white person asking a black person this question, you risk ruffling some feathers. The question implies that the black person is not really American–that they are foreign. When it is very likely that the black person’s ancestry goes back to the North American continent far longer than your average white person. So the black person should be asking the white person where they are from, right?
If you want to know why I have high cheek bones, I will tell you I have no idea. If asked forthrightly and politely, I will tell you that I have African, European, and possible Native American ancestry. But that tells you naught about my bone structure. It just tells you why I don’t fit nicely in one category.
And if you have just a passing history of the US, hear me speak for a few seconds, and look at my surname, you can probably put two and two together. If my surname is Spanish and it’s obvious English isn’t my first language, for instance, you might be given a pass on asking where I am from. But if my surname is English (which it is) and I tell you I’m from Atlanta (chocolate city), and my accent is 100% American with a subtle AAVE/blaccent thing going on, then I’m going to wonder how long you have been in this country if you have to ask where I am from.
I’ve seen white people with striking features before, but never have I been tempted to go up to them and ask them about their genetic origins. That sounds more than creepy.
Sorry - I occasionally post without thinking. Funny that I said that in the same post commenting on how stupid other people are, though, huh?
I love threads like this one. I’m always comforted when reading that I’m not the sole object of this invasive, insensitive lunacy. 
My personal experience is exactly as Dio described. As I said in one of the earlier threads on this topic, after being asked, throughout my life “what are you?” or “where are you from?” and then being subjected to the insistence that I provide an answer that allows the questioner to place me in a category they understand, people should be happy that all I do is become annoyed.
One time I answered, snarkily, “Human” when, for the eleventy-millionth time, I was asked what I am, and was immediately assaulted with “Why don’t you just tell me? What’s the big $@#*% deal?!” It was that important to the guy. Maybe he was just itching to tell his next n***** joke and I was causing his head to explode from the uncertainty, who knows?
A friend of mine with considerable Native American ancestry, was raised ‘white’.
While he has been relatively successful and happy in adult life, I realize now he has some personality traits that would have been of particular interest to any tribal elders he might have encountered while growing up, had that been possible.
Hard to say if he would be happier or more successful as a ‘Medicine Man’, but it is sad he was unaware he had that as a choice.
I guess this is one of the costs of ‘assimilation’ . . . .
So we honkeys have no medicine men? That’s a pretty offensive statement.
What would you call Rabbi Klears, who cut of my foreskin to bring me into an ancient covenant between my people and G-d, who taught me the wisdom and stories of our people, who confirmed me as an adult of our people, was always ready to answer the children’s questions and was fun at parties?
What would you call my therapist, who teaches me with stories, gives me the tools to fight the troubles that plague my spirit, and occasionally interprets my dreams?
Jewish people aren’t white. At best you’re honorary white people, like South Europeans or the Japanese. 
I’m Filipino-White, but I look like a generic white guy. This allows me to move among them. And secretly record their Filipino jokes…
Someday I’ll hear one, and I will be outraged!
How many Filipinos does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Just two–one to hold the ladder and one to change it.
Having moved out of my ancestral hometown at age 4, then out of the town where I grew up at 18, and having spent a lot of time abroad, I’m used to people asking “where are you from?” or “what are you?” (this particular version, only in the US and, not realizing it was actually a mis-speaking, I answered “an engineer, why?”). I’m not offended - it’s been going on my whole life.
But getting back “no way, you can’t be from Spain!” (I don’t sound like Antonio Banderas, being from the opposite end of the country) or “no way you grew up here!” (because he doesn’t remember seeing me around town before) automatically files that person under “M for Moron”. I usually ask them whether they intend to tell me my own life story or what.
Forgiven, sure. But here’s something very important. Intent does not matter nearly as much as results. If you accidentally hit someone in the face, or drop something on their foot, they’re still hurt. If you insult me with a stupid, racially motivated question, even if you’re asking out of some nominally innocent motivation, I’m still insulted.
And when my response is not accepted at face value and instead you want to argue with me or pursue the questioning further when I’ve clearly shown no interest in having this conversation with yet another stranger (who I’m meant to presume are well-intentioned, even though there’s no evidence that such is true) then the insult is compounded further.
There’s a name for these sorts of interactions. They’re microaggressions. And they have a deleterious effect on people’s wellbeing.
I am a mutt also, aka hybrid, aka “multinational conglomerate seeking to move into virgin markets” aka human. I am part English (who are also mutts really), Welsh, Scottish, Spanish, Native American (which is also a mutt heritage in my family - not descended from any one tribe, but several SW peoples). I hate having to check ethnicity boxes on forms and leave it blank or mark human whenever possible.
Culturally, I grew up in Seattle, and developed a very cosmopolitan, globalist, anti-nationalist outlook. I see culture as cuisine, and take bits and pieces from every where to create my own personal fusion.
My fun is that I have very average looks and people love to assume I am whatever they are. I have had Indians think I am Indian, Italians think I am from Italian, Turks think I am from Turkish, Arabs think I am Arabic, Hispanics think I am Hispanic. I always thought I could have had a great career in the CIA if I had been so inclined.
Shopping in Chicago was always fun. On several occasions I would have people address me in their native language until I finally replied in English - sadly the only language I am fluent in.
So I developed a thick skin about all this a long time ago. I can’t blame others too much. It is an enigma many times, and part of the price to paid for living in a multi-cultural society. Much better than the alternative. I consider myself lucky to have been born after the worse of the Civil Rights era, and I know I am a direct beneficiary of those conflicts. Dealing with the occasional idiot and lingering bigotry is a small price in comparison to minorities* had to endure in the past.
One of my nephews is going to even have more fun than I have. His father is African-American, while his mother, my sister, shares my heritage - same parents and all that. He looks very ambiguous himself, plus a mass of wild curly brown hair that no one is sure where it came from. He definitely is a hybrid - I have never seen anyone with hair like his.
AP
*Minorities only in the United States and Europe. I think one reason why bigots and white supremacists get so worked up is because they know they are the minority in global terms. And payback will be a bitch unless inequality is resolved. Trust me, if the rest of the world every truly decided to flood these shores, nothing could stop it.
Maybe I’m sort of dumb here, but my brain has a slight problem parsing this expression; it seems sort of self-contradictory.
I’m North European, not American. Does that explain why I’ve got that problem?