To think it's not UR to ask what ethnicity someone is?

[FlobberWobber]

To me, it's not rude, I lived abroad for 10 years and was often asked where I came from, it was just asked out of genuine interest.

DD is mixed race, my other DC aren't and I'm often asked in a round about way, " Oh wow, they look so different..." then I have to explain. I don't really mind. Yesterday someone said they had been dying to ask me what ethnicity DD was but thought they may sound rude, I've heard similar things said, but to me it's not rude at all to ask, aibu?

Flobber- that's the issue with asking about ethnicity is people ask ignorant questions which in turn offends the person they are asking.
Example:
Me: My grandparents were born in the caribbean
Person: Oh Jamaica, when did you move over here? How often do you go home?
Two points- why is it always assumed that Caribbean means Jamaica (in fact my grandparents are from two different southern islands and met over here, so my parent was born here. I've always lived here. I am home!

Flobber I think you're missing the point, I don't (can't answer for Spork) feel pain when people ask my ethnicity its the tactlessness that grates me and the assumption, that I must have been born elsewhere. No one has simply asked "what is your ethnic background" It always starts with where are you from? etc...

I am happy to talk about my heritage - I do it all the time - but I want to choose to talk about it, not be put on the spot by someone else's curiosity (which if I deny, I will be badgered and be made to look like the bad guy). I want talking about it to be MY choice and people to respect my choice of whether or not I want to talk about it.

The pain I feel is that once again what I want to say doesn't matter, how I look and talk will always matter more (and will be the cause of mine and my children's pain on a daily basis) and other people's curiosity is so much more important than my feelings. Some days, I don't have the energy to play teacher and play nice.

Seriously, if you asked someone their ethnicity, and they replied "Metis", how many do you think leave it at that and let me get on with the conversation. Hint - no one has ever left it at that. I never get to just walk away with just my ethnicity, I have to roll it up in a history lesson and a myth debunking session, and the entire conversation is completely derailed...because someone was curious. Most often, I cringe my teeth and bear it because there is no way for me to get out of it without looking the bad guy, but just once I would like someone to just stop the questions and push the topic back on conversation rather than that being on my shoulders.

i guess when people are that invested in their entitlement there is no swaying them, no argument, or appeal to their powers of empathy are enough.

i have to say i am not surprised.

I do not think anyone on here is suggesting you should

But not everyone does feel the way you do so do we never ask In case we upset someone. Of course I do it feel you should need to educate others or do I think those who rather not be asked think they are not proud

People are often bad a reading signs that some people are more private than others and just launch into questions, ask when it is irrelevant and so on but I still feel it is natural for people to be curious it is just knowing when it is ok and not ok to ask, and understanding not everyone wants to be asked and if they are will not want to tell you

OP - Just because lots of people are happy to talk about their ethnicity, doesn't make it ok.

I would say just as many on the thread have said they find it intrusive.

How long are you going to keep labouring this point... frankly It's coming across as patronising when you say "I'm sorry you feel pain talking about your ethnicity, but lots of people don't! So fuck you.

I get asked about my heritage a lot, which I find strange (live in the same town I grew up in, as did my parents) but im not offended by it. Sometimes I get annoyed when I aay im from england a.d am met with the respo.se "i mean orriganally." Or when someone said to me, "yeah bit what about your family? Because youre not white." (i am white). I just laugh it off now.

Awomansworth - on the other hand just as many people are 'ok' talking about their ethnicity.
I don't want my DD growing up to think it not 'Ok' (as you put it) to talk about her ethnicity, as if it's something very private and not to be talked about. To me this indicates it's something 'taboo' and I don't want DD to feel that way.
This is why I am labouring my point.

i guess when people are that invested in their entitlement there is no swaying them, no argument, or appeal to their powers of empathy are enough.

Yes... this is the exactly how OP is coming across to me too.

maybe because the op herself has a dd that is mixed race and she herself often gets asked where they are from she finds people's backgrounds of more interest

I have travelled and lived in other countries it is always asked where you are from we are far less intrusive here or we pretend to be but as I said before it is the way it is asked and what people are wanting to know

Flobber So how would you respond if you asked someone, and their response was "Metis."

Because I'm going to labour my point: I am happy to discuss my ethnicity, I just want to bring it up on my own rather than be forced into the conversation with people because they were curious. Just because I don't want to discuss it with everyone with a question doesn't mean I think it is taboo or not okay. I value myself too much to treat my ethnicity as an open book for everyone or treat myself as a walking encyclopedia

If people want to talk about their background and history, they'll do it on their own. I'm not sure why that's such a hard concept. I'm not sure why people think they need to know right away, surely letting it come out naturally would be far more interesting and revealing than my halted 'let's get this over with' speech. Because if you push me on it, that's all you're going to get, people who push me get an overload of academic information to satisfy their curiosity then I avoid them, that treatment isn't good my health. I prefer to be around people who want to discuss things more interesting than their questions and thoughts on my ethnicity and background and don't shite on my feelings just because other people don't tell you that they mind or think it must be discussed now because not talking about it whenever means it must be taboo.

Faithless - oh the assumptions. The assumptions and being treated like a walking encyclopedia and there is no way out of those conversation that works well for me. There are thousands of books and blogs and websites on these topics if people found it so interesting, but no, we'll just ask the next relevant someone and have them be the representative and teacher on everything. They could never be tired of that, it could never be awkward for someone to discuss their people going through genocide or having to deal with the repeated assumption that we're all dead.

"I don't want my DD growing up to think it not 'Ok' (as you put it) to talk about her ethnicity, as if it's something very private and not to be talked about. To me this indicates it's something 'taboo' and I don't want DD to feel that way."

Oh, for goodness sake! Of course if's Ok for your dd to talk about her ethnicity. She can wear a sandwich board declaring it if she wants to! What we're talking about is people asking her about it a propos nothing. Surely you can see a difference?

Awomansworth - Absolutely, how dare the Mother of a mixed race child want her DD to feel absolutely positive & proud of her ethnicity and feel 'ok' as you put it, to discuss it.... Jesus wept.

There are questions about pretty much anything that will cause distress to the person asked, For DD, her race is hopefully not going to be one of them.

Freudian, thanks, it's good to have someone who understands my take on this through personal experience, I hope my daughter feels the way you do when she grows up.

What we're talking about is people asking her about it a propos nothing. Surely you can see a difference
I don't understand this sentence.

I understand TheS with yourself if you are talking about yourself and not using an example it will raise a lot of questions that you do not want to be asked

hopefully most people will know when to ask and when not to but really is it something people can never ask because many people are ok with being asked

My dad is from an ethnic group of people called burgers of course that sounds amusing, so I have to explain that and he does for us it is not an issue but of course for others it is

we live in a multi cultural society, we live among many different cultures wanting to know about other peope you come into contact with, spend time with is natural to most

"What we're talking about is people asking her about it a propos nothing. Surely you can see a difference
I don't understand this sentence."

She can talk about it as much as she likes. What is not OK is people asking her about it as a conversational opener. Particularly the "where are you from?" type questions. Particularly if they are not going to accept "Croydon" as an answer.

I think you might be confusing not wanting to talk about your heritage to every tom dick and harry with being ashamed of your heritage.
I'm very proud of my heritage and I hope ds is too, however I can't be arsed to have the: "no, I was born here - no my parents were born here too" conversation with random people just because they are dying to know why I look a bit foreign.

OP it's novel for you, so of course you think it's ok. Try experiencing it everyday of your life and then explain to me that it's ok for people to assume and ask questions and then not accept the answer to their questions because you're not white...

And, as I keep saying, it's not a question anyone would ask me. And I am very foreign. I just don't look it. I can talk about my heritage or not, as I choose. Which is how it should be. My choice. Not some random person exercising their "natural curiosity".

I find it fascinating that people get wildly offended on here if anyone comments on their child's red hair, for example, while simultaneously saying it's fine for anyone to say the equivalent of "Ooooh, you look exotic, where are you from? No- where are you really from?"

Of course people are naturally curious. But natural curiosity doesn't mean that it's O.K. to ask any question that pops into your head. Being proud or ashamed of one's background is a red herring here. I'm not ashamed of (for example) who I voted for or my annual salary, but I certainly don't think it's anyone else's business to ask me about those things.

If the underlying assumption of the question seems to be that the questioner wants to emphasize otherness or inferiority or to reinforce an idea about who is "really" a member of the in-group, then of course I'd have an issue with it. Cultural context is important. As I wrote above, my DH is Russian. He is also Jewish. If someone in Russia asks whether he is Jewish, there is often an unspoken hint (sometimes more than a hint) of anti-Semitism in the question. That same question asked in a different context wouldn't necessarily be as loaded.

OP - I too am the mother of mixed race dc, and I don't agree with you. I don't want their ethnicity to be what defines them. Your views are, IMO very naïve.

Surely as parents we all want our dc to grow up being proud of who they are as people first and foremost.

We spend at least 6 weeks of the year in the Caribbean visiting DH's extended family, because we want the dc to understand about their heritage. They have never asked why everyone is the same colour as DH, it just wouldn't occur to them. I take this as a compliment that we are raising them to understand that ethnicity is not what defines people.

As an aside one of my dc also has a disability and I feel exactly the same, his disability doesn't define him as a person and nor should it.

curlew - so, I should explain to DD & other DC something like this..

"It's fine to talk about your race Little FlobberWobber if you bring it up, but it's not ok for someone to ask you, especially someone who's white. Why not? Because your race is a private thing Little FlobberWobber and it's a bit of a controversial topic. I hope you're listening littlest FlobberWobber siblings, because you're white you mustn't ask anyone who looks like your sister their race as it will be your white privilege speaking, and that is a terrible thing."

I'm going to go now, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

We're far beyond doing things to others just because it is natural. Living in a multicultural culture doesn't mean we have to be open books to everyone we meet.

I openly discuss myself and have conversations about it all the time - with people I want to be close to and have regular contact with. I do not see why it should be considered natural to ask someone you just met about their background when the current topic of conversation is finding the dentist, new glasses, considering haircuts, trains, and other light conversations of people who know nothing about each other (and these are all real examples of conversations I've had where someone has interjected to ask a completely unrelated topic about me). I've never had a conversation with people I've just met where my ethnicity naturally became a topic of conversation - it is always an abrupt topic change because someone just has to ask.

My being in public and being willing to talk to someone about the weather shouldn't be taken as a sign I'm willing to talk about my ethnicity, accent, background, or am wanting to hear your opinion and questions on any of those things, but many people seem to think so. I've had the experience of going in for an eye exam and came out drained having discussed American politics with people of my ethnicity, immigration policies for people of my nationality, and the fine details of how I met and why I married my husband with a complete stranger who had far better things to do with implements near my eyes (and I never went back there again). I was in high risk labour and had things delayed while I was bleeding and fearing death because someone wanted to talk about how family centric people of my ethnicity supposedly are and surprise that my mother wasn't there because of this family centric myth, she made me sound like an aberration rather than recognize that she had homogenized over 500 nations into one mythical people. I have people regularly tell me they thought all of my people - and the people of the others nations - are dead or want to discuss how they dressed up in traditional garb for a costume for a party while my people are denied the right to wear our own and have to fight multinationals from using our name and traditional designs as a marketing gimmick. I'm not always in the mood to challenge their perceptions or to discuss how we're not dead even while we still face genocide and the taking of our children because of the so called "interesting" ethnicity and religion or discuss how badly whatever TV show they watched represented us and that whatever they said wasn't true. I have never had anyone ask my ethnicity and not asked a dozens of follow up questions. That's a lot of energy for someone I just met who interrupted a conversation for their curiosity.

FlobberWobber you are being ridiculous and you know it because you are purposefully missing the other people who are telling you why it is an issue for them. I'm not ashamed of who I am, but my parent's bought me up to not be defined by my ethnicity. I am faithless not my ethnicity and you'd be hard pressed to find someone else with the exact mix as me.

It isn't an issue about being ashamed or hurt by people asking your ethnicity but an issue of people assuming you aren't 'local' because you aren't white.

I don't think you need to explain anything like that to your dc. My mixed race son does feel uncomfortable when people he doesn't know talk about his skin and ask where he is from. He will just have to put up with it i guess. My white'children aren't interested in ethnicity at all so I'd be surprised if they questioned people.