I’m not sure the exact nature of the cute little race game you are playing, but I already find it obnoxious.
This has come up multiple times in this thread, so…
Can someone tell me why someone would want to touch another person’s hair? Especially a stranger’s hair? I mean this question absolutely seriously. Never in my life have I felt such an urge and it seems so completely baffling that other people do this.
If this has happened to you, what’s the context behind it?
No idea but I wish it would happen to me. I LOVE LOVE LOVE having my hair/scalp played with. Tingalicious.
The twinkies I know prefer “twinkie.”
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Seriously, race affects how one looks. Is it wrong to notice that? If you tell someone they’re fat, it’s not cool, but if you notice someone is tall, or has red hair, or something, is it such a big deal? It’s just neutral, and humans are curious.
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Is your strawman for real??
It’s like you have turned your brain off completely when reading this thread. NO ONE HAS EVER, ONCE SAID that people are stupid for noticing someone’s ethnicity. Can you find a single quote from this thread where someone said so? It’s HOW PEOPLE TREAT OTHERS who they find ethnically confusing that is the issue. Or do you think it is impossible to be rude or stupid when attempting to determine someone’s heritage?
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I guess the answer to your question is that yes, my strawman was for real.
I thought your issue was with people asking, not the nature of how they asked. And when I said “people notice, and are curious,” I was attempting to imply people were going to ask, not just literally notice.
It *feels *like some people in this thread intentionally avoid answering what ethnicity/race/whatever they are because they find the question itself obnoxious.
He said “notice”, not “ask”. Those are two different things. And before that post I already gave an example of how someone could ask about someone’s heritage without sounding like an idiot. So I’m not sure what planet people are from when they say “HOW DARE YOU VILIFY ME FOR NOTICING NOT EVERYONE IS THE SAME, BFD!” That isn’t what this thread has ever been about.
It HAS been about how many times I’ve had this exact conversation I had on 71st and State st. in Chicago while waiting to pick up my order of catfish to go:
“Where are you from?”
“Here.”
“no… (rising anger) I mean where are your PARENTS from.”
“Evanston.”
“NO!! (more angry) I MEAN, ARE YOU ARABIC?”
“No.”
looks at me suspiciously like I’m a liar “Are you mexican then?”
“No.”
“WELL YOU LOOK ARABIC!”
Apparently I am being intolerant for finding this special snowflake obnoxious for “just noticing” I am a bit ambiguous looking. It’s not my fault people don’t know how to ask what they want to ask, and it’s not my job to indulge imbeciles because I exist and don’t look like someone he can put into a box. While waiting for my catfish order.
Alright, I’m pissing you off. Don’t mean to. I didn’t mean to vilify you either. Peace.
It is too late to edit, so:
bup, do you not understand that “What are you?” is an incredibly rude question, and is NOT an appropriate way to ask someone’s ethnicity? It seems like you are conflating how offensive we find “What are you?” with asking about our ethnicity at all. But like I’ve already said multiple times, there are polite ways to do this. “What are you” is not one of them.
Don’t mistake me seething in rage at my computer, I find these people in person idiotic, and am surprised that there are people defending them on this thread. And I wasn’t saying you were vilifying me. I was saying the people on this thread who cannot understand why “What are you?” is offensive are playing the victim card for their curiosity, no matter how rudely they approach the issue.
If you’ve never been up close then I could see how one might want to touch “different” hair. Depending on your culture that might not be a personal space issue.
Real life example is that in China, especially little kids, are really curious and it’s almost like a magnet for them to reach out and touch arm hair. At least, that happend to be a few thousand times in my 20+ years there. Then I would freak them out and show off my leg hair. 
Or when people would ask “aren’t you cold” when wearing a short sleeve shirt in the winter, I would joke about my arm hair keeping me warm. Ya, it did get old at times, and I didn’t like it much when adults did it without a by your leave.
Now, go somewhere like the backwoods of Tibet and people are really curious. They haven’t seen a TV much less a foreigner before and are naturally curious. Tibetans did it in a very natural non-invasive or uncomfortable causing way. I was in Lhasa with a American black guy I knew in Taiwan. In a neighboring village, people were just amazed. My friend spent a very enjoyable afternoon of the entire village checking out his skin. Again, there are good ways and bad ways to be so personal.
My experience with having 3 Asian Caucasian mixed kids here in the Seattle area has been most people don’t notice. Although when my youngest was getting her autism diagnosis, her doctor was from Hawaii and commented on my adorable kids. People in Hawaii recognize Amer-Asians a lot more than here for sure.
Me, I try to tactfully and diplomatically ask if someone is a) Chinese and b) speak Mandarin since I speak Mandarin as well. Tread lightly because some Asian’s can get really upset if you assume the wrong nationality or imply anything negative about not speaking anything but 'Merican. I find it pretty easy to identify is someone is Amer-Asian but a lot more difficult to identify the specific Asian part in that equation.
In Mandarin at least, it is “banana” since they don’t have Twinkies.
Because your OP oozes hostility and indignation . I’m not going pick apart your every sentence, such as your wish to tell “PERFECT STRANGERS ON THE STREET” that your “ETHNICITY IS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS!”, or that you’ve met enough of “these idiots to know exactly what they’re thinking”. I don’t get what’s so insulting if they say you don’t look like what you say you are. Are you living in 1930s Nazi Germany or something? I’m also not really sure why you care if they assume your mixed race is what you consider your most important trait, nor am I convinced that they even care as much as you think they do. As many times in my life that I’ve veen questioned about my ETHNICITY, I’ve never experienced the drama that you’ve portrayed here (including during an unfortunate incarceration where it really does matter what you are).
I think being regularly accosted as essentially “not one of us” and having your claims treated with suspicion or disbelief would get really old really fucking fast, personally.
This absolutely makes sense in a place like Tibet, I suppose. But it sounds like a lot of these hair-touching incidents happened in the US, where a heterogeneous population is just sort of a given.
Thanks for the explanation. I’m marking this phenomenon down as something I Just Don’t Get. Like not RSVPing for weddings or eating pickles.
So you can’t see why it’s annoying to have that kind of conversation with a stranger?
They ask you a question that’s intrusive to begin with, and then instead of graciously accepting that answer and slithering back into oblivion–like any good stranger should do–they pull you into a discussion about how you defy whatever image they have of people in your racial/ethnic group? As if that isn’t already obvious to you (since they asked you that question to begin with)?
It’s a lot like asking someone how much they weigh and then pointing out that their answer conflicts with your preconceived estimate. Rude.
Because there is an implication that I am lying about being half black, and also the implication that I am stupid and don’t know what I look like. Do you get it now?
I’m not sure what you mean by this?
The first part of this I am not even sure how to make you understand. Either you GET why “What are you?” is extremely rude and somewhat dehumanizing, or you don’t.
I think I would say though, someone “cares” by definition if they go up to a perfect stranger and start grilling them about their ethnicity, and then get suspicious and angry when they hear the truth.
It’s been a few years since the conversation I had in the catfish shop, but I’m pretty sure it’s at least 85% verbatim of what was said. Do you think I am lying about this incidence? And it’s never happened to you…so what, who cares? Are the people that DO talk to me and other mixed race people like catfish shop guy, rude and stupid or not? It’s really, REALLY simple that they are being assholes, it wouldn’t hurt you to actually condemn them as such instead of defending rude jerks, or strawmanning polite curious people (which again, has never been what this thread is about).
I’m a Chicagoan living in the Seattle area and you quite possibly are confusing “Dont notice” with “Don’t care/comment”, it’s not like there aren’t a ton of white/asian mixed young people here.
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.
Guilty as charged.
Well, not really. Not around mixed race people anyway. I couldn’t care less about where you’re from. However, a friend of a friend of mine has a really weird, whispery voice - I assume he’s had throat cancer or something like that. I don’t know, because I never asked.
Then again, I can never talk to him at lengths because whenever he speaks my mind is too full of the screaming voice that goes “ASK HIM WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HIS VOICE, DUDE ?!” to hear anything he’s saying. Sad but true.
I would assume people who blurt out “What are you ?!” have the same problem when it comes to skin colour, albeit less self-control than I do. Or more honesty.
Woot, nice to meet you. My husband is Indian, too. What I think is funny is when the “Oh, you must know Babu!” comment comes from another Indian person. Because I swear in that case, about 1/2 the time they can work out a connection, somewhere, somehow.
My son is four. Aside from him having to spell his name at least twice for everyone he meets (it’s not a hard name, but people don’t seem to hear it properly when he’s only with me, because they’re not expecting an Indian name – he doesn’t look northern-European like me, but I’d think most people in the US would guess his father is black if they had to try to guess); and except for a suspiciously large number of “oh, he’s the most beautiful child” comments coming his way (I mean, I think he’s utterly adorable myself, but still), there hasn’t been much of an issue yet. I wonder what it will be like as he gets older
Smart? Well that’s not exactly what we normally say about Poms, but hey - if that’s what people say to you perhaps I can petition Oxford to change the definition of whinge. :p:D
The one I get is “Where are you from” … if I’m in the mood my reply is…
“Well you see, you take a mommy and a daddy, the daddy puts his…and nine months later I come out”
Also round here people love to talk about caucasians as though we are mono cultural with the exact same mores and customs - yeah that drives me freaking insane.