Come and share your "No, where are you REALLY from?" experiences...

[CupOfCake]

I'm writing this as I feel some people just don't get it. Happy to accept that it's difficult to understand why this question might be so offensive as, well, surely it's just a question...

I am British, I am English. I was born here. I have never lived anywhere else. My mother is English and she brought me up. My childhood was full of cold beach holidays and chattering aunties on the South Coast. Her family are British, going back many, many generations. All of my cultural references are British. My accent couldn't really be more British.

My father's family were originally from a Hispanic country.
SO, whilst being British, I also happen to be slightly brown, kind of very light brown olive/bit of a tan colour with brown eyes and brown hair.

I could not possibly say the number of times I have aggressively been asked, "NO! Where are you REALLY from?"

I have been told "Well, you're definitely not British" many, many times. Or told: "Well you would think that, because you're not from here." in response to any kind of disagreement regarding anything political.

I usually say originally, London (I don't live in London, so it's a logical answer). This reply is rarely enough for the majority of people.
"No, but where are you..?"
I explain which part of London. I then talk about what is basically my cultural heritage - South of England.

Anyone who has experienced this knows what the conversation is REALLY about.

"I'm English." I say.

People then often start to get annoyed. "Where are your parents from?"

Now, because I am sadly a bit of a people pleaser, I will inevitably at some point say, "Oh, well my grandmother was from..." this particular country (prefer not to say on here).

They then relax, smile and say "Ah, you're from [x country]."
"No," I explain, "I am English."
"So," they ask, "how often do you go back home?"

Yes the words GO BACK HOME. These are not obviously swivel-eyed racists. These are people of all ages and many different backgrounds, often the sort of veggie lefties who all think they're so very super right on.

UNFORTUNATELY, MANY BRITISH PEOPLE WILL REFUSE TO ACCEPT ME AS BRITISH/ENGLISH.

Occasionally they'll ask how long I've lived in England, or how I find the rain/ cold weather.

So, why don't I just answer the long version from the start? Well, then forever more I will be CupOfCake from [x country]. In fact, this happened throughout my 20s.

Just to be clear. I don't mind discussing my heritage, in fact I love it.

I just don't want anyone to ask me how often I "GO BACK" to anywhere other than London. Why? because I am English.

I don't want to have to (yet again) defend my right to be simultaneously English and light brown.

I don't want to be told that I don't belong in MY country, that I was BORN in and have LIVED in for over 50 years.

Anyone else care to share?

Nothing at all.

If you asked me about where I am 'from' I would answer, London as that is where I am from.

If you asked me about my heritage, I'd answer you accurately and explain where both of my parents' families were from.

I would only have a problem if you refused to accept the answer of London and would not accept that I could be English as I look light brown.

This is where the word REALLY comes in. It's saying, I don't believe you can be British, you don't look it and I'm not going to let you just say you're British. I'm going to find out why you're brown and then tell you that you come from that country. Not my one.

Hope that helps.

You know, I really started this thread so that people who didn't get it could understand. I totally get that if you've never experienced it, you might not get it.

Are we all supposed to pretend that we're completely ignorant to accents and differences of appearance? Isn't that as bad as saying 'I don't see colour'?

FFS it’s really not difficult!!

If someone has a different accent than the local area, they are obviously not from that area!

If someone has the same accent, then chances are they are from that area.

If someone has the same accent as the local accent and they say they’re from the area and were born and lived in the area their entire lives, that should be the end of it.

Why do people need to ask where they’re really from or where they were from before that.

No one needs to know where your parents, grandparents or ancestors came from unless you know them personally, as it’s completely irrelevant.

Interestingly those are all accent-inspired. There are about 40 estimated accents in the UK and accent and regional dialect can really pinpoint where someone is from within the UK,
sometimes down to the village. But in each of your examples it seems to be your question is “Your accent places you somewhere else in the UK from where we are, so where are you from in the UK?”

Whereas the OP and the topic is being asked where are you from based on skin colour, and you can’t pinpoint someone’s UK hometown based on that (there might statistically be more Black people in Brixton than Brighton, but it’s not a given). Asking based on skin colour is therefore not “where in the UK did you move here from”, it’s “you’re not British, are you?”

What do you mean though?

2 ladies, one black and one white, both have the exact same accent.

The black one gets asked where you're from, she says London so does the white one.

The black one continues to get quizzed, where are your parents from? or where are you really from? or where are your great grandparents from?

Honestly it's not that hard to wrap your head around why its racists and if you can't see it then we cant force you. It is what it is at this point.

I understood that the poster was a white Kenyan who didn’t speak Swahili very well but worked in Kenya.

Isn't there? That's strange. I live in a large culturally diverse city.
There are Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Italian and Portuguese and a large number of black carribean and African folk which I would say was a black community .I think what we can take from this thread is a piece of advice: keep yoir mouth firmly shut and say nothing to anyone lest you offend them

So you only ask people with "foreign" accents? Why not ask everyone if you're only asking because you are interested?

Of course not, and "I don't see colour" is plainly preposterous. There is nothing wrong with curiosity. There's certainly nothing wrong in being interested in people.

HOWEVER,
Would you repeatedly question someone's right to refer to themselves as British if they were a bit brown?
Would you think that was OK to ask where they are REALLY from?

It is rude if they don’t accept the first answer. People can identify as a nationality which they have been raised in.

I think what the racists might actually mean is ‘If I looked at your ancestry.com DNA results would it REALLY say British?’ 🙄

I moved 100 miles for work. One of my new colleagues, Freddie said “ere, where you from then”. As I’m mixed race I thought ‘here we go’ but Freddie was from the same part of London (about a mile away) and he recognised the nuances of my accent!

Crossing the boarder in Texas whilst travelling in the USA, the border control guy took one look at the cover of my British passport and said “there is no way on gods green earth that your momma and father are British” and then proceeded to interrogate me as to where I was born.

One of the most humiliating things to happen to me (especially in front of the children, who were petrified as the boarder control guys carried huge guns) but had to grin and bare it as who knows what they would do! Oh also both my parents, and grandparents were all British and born in the uk despite having a different ethnic origin.

These people are just uneducated

To be honest, I’ve grown up in a very multi cultural part of London and at school (secondary and primary) no one asked where the other was from but eg one school friend went to live in her dad’s country (Barbados) with her family when she was 6, they returned when she was 9 but we only knew Barbados because she told us.

As far as I know, whenever I’ve asked friends who are not white British where they’re from (or if they’ve offered this information up) I haven’t pressed them or tried to make them feel like they don’t belong because just why would you do that? A few years ago I was in touch with someone I’d known as a teenager and I’d thought they were Mediterranean because of olive skin, brown eyes etc, turns out they were Anglo Indian from British colonisation times. But he offered that information, I think I asked if he was Mediterranean origin and he elaborated.

I’ve worked with and mixed with all cultures, races etc and just would never ask the wrong questions because I was given diversity, inclusion, bias and non bias training. But in the past, yes, maybe on the occasion I’ve asked a question which could be taken the wrong way. Now though I’m very careful as I don’t want to offend people.

My nana years ago when she was alive had a Jewish surname, and apparently looked Jewish, so much so that pre WW2 and during it she got work with Jewish bosses and they told her, it was because she was Jewish and she didn’t want to put them right that she wasn’t Jewish (she actually thought the family was Jewish going back generations but for whatever reasons they chose not to practice Judaism etc).

"Are we all supposed to pretend that we're completely ignorant to accents and differences of appearance? Isn't that as bad as saying 'I don't see colour'?"

Noticing is not the same thing as quizzing and not accepting someone's answer and feeling entitled to answers that fit your preconceptions and your visual assessment of the person!

I can't do this. I cant. I'm going to lose my fucking mind here.

I'm hiding the thread before I go batcrap crazy.

I understand. I have escaped the racial element because I am white raised in a majority white non-english-speaking country, but my foreign name always made people ask me where I was from, no, really from. Even as a child. I would confusedly tell them I was from [x town], which was the town where I had lived all my life, to be met by "no, really, where". Even the teachers called me "the English girl", nevermind that my parents are actually Scottish and none of us had ever lived in England. It didn't matter how many times I told them that my parents were foreign, but I wasn't, or that Scotland was different to England, they just insisted. I was also disgusted by how they visibly relaxed when they decided that I was English, like it was one of the 'acceptable' ways of being foreign.

I've also had the genuine non-malicious confusion when I did move to Scotland, so I know the difference. People were just confused that I looked native and spoke just like a native but didn't get any of the cultural references (and couldn't spell). Anyway, if I got all that shit just from having a foreign name, I can only imagine the shit that others get for not 'looking' the part.

And for the person claiming it's the same as being white in Kenya: you've hit the nail on the head. The very reason why it is racist to assume someone non-white is not English is because it betrays the assumption that only white people are english. That is the racist assumption. You believe that only white people are english to such as extent that you think the non-white english person in front of you is lying or mistaken or misleading you. It's more comparable to insisting that a white south african is not from south africa.

I am Irish, grew up in London and the ME. My accent is fucked. I get asked all the time if I'm Australian or American. Fucking irritating but not the same thing at all.

Plus, she touched her hair. How is that acceptable at all?

Is there a polite way of asking about a person's background then? As in, not racist, buy interested in the person way?
I have (and mixed race family) been asked where we are from origionally..I have never seen it as insulting

I get this DAILY!
I am white British. Very pale white..as am of Scottish/Irish ethnicity with a bit of northern English thrown in (borderlands). Going back, well for-ev-er. Born and raised within the U.K. until I was ten. And then….trekking the world as my parents were the nomadic sort. My parents avoided all Brit expat communities insisting we integrate with the local communities. So never went to international schools, always local schools. I left home at 17 when they were in the US and fucked off to Colorado, a few months later they left for Singapore and I stayed in the US for a bit longer. Have gone back and forth a few times as an adult and had a few years in Mexico and Germany for awhile.

RESULT: I have a weird “foreign” accent that is definitely not a British accent so the second I say “hello” I’m a de facto immigrant. It’s a bit depressing really, been an immigrant outside the U.K. from age ten and then to find out whenever you come “home to the U.K.” you are still an immigrant! Because you sound like one.

Its constant the “where are you from?” “How are you liking the U.K.?” “Do you miss your home country” etc. During lockdown I’d even get comments like “how’d you even get here, I though they closed down the airports” and such.

I used to say where I was born and my hometown but the reaction was too often a laugh and a ‘that isn’t an x accent, where are you really from?” So nowadays when asked where I’m from I’ll say “nowhere really” it saves the life story that people have no right to know.

This happened to me on the Israeli border.

I was almost deported except that because I know the names of my grandparents, my "story" was deemed ok.

My white husband who was born outside the UK did not have his British passport queried

My friend does this all the time. It’s extremely embarrassing but if you call her out on it she is outraged that it might be considered racist. She says she just loves hearing about where everyone is from. But she only asks people who are not white.

the worst time was when she was recently patting the hair of a little girl and saying how beautiful it was and asking if it was natural. Completely singling her out in a group of children (all others were white). I had to drag her away before the parents noticed.

OP, I’m with you 100% but your last sentence is wrong. People who haven’t experienced it should still get it; if they don’t they are likely racist or plain ignorant.

I understand I am privileged as a white woman: I won’t pretend to know exactly what it feels like to be asked “but where are you really from?”, I won’t minimise or question the experiences of those who have and I will do what is within my gift to challenge and call out racism wherever I see it.

The ignorance from certain posters is completely depressing. Know your privilege people FFS.

I'd usually only ask people who are obviously not local. Because I'm not a weirdo. Why would I ask people who look and sound local where they're from?

Thank you deary! One more for the inevitable bingo card people like you press to your bosom.

@SeekingMeTime @BringbackSpringsteen
This is actually really sad and deflating :(
So sorry to you both.

I remember a few years ago it suddenly came to me that the true meaning of this question is "but WHY aren't you white?"

As if people of different ethnic backgrounds need to give an explanation of how/when/why they have ended up in the UK, whether they were born here or not. The implication is that white people belong here (their heritage doesn't matter, for example my family tree is all over the world but I look "white enough" that no-one asks), and "non pure white looking" people don't belong here and therefore should account or themselves whenever asked, whatever the circumstances.

*account for themselves