...to find it peculiar when white people ask me where I come from 'originally'...

[MrsMerryHenry]

...but haven't got a bleeding clue about their own ethnic origins?

Classic convo:Person: Hi, blah blah blah

Me: Hi, blah blah blah

Person: So where are you from? Originally, I mean?

Me: I'll tell you that if you can tell me first where you come from.

Person: Oh, er...London. (I am not exaggerating here, I have been told this at least twice )

and double-

The best any of them can do is 'England and Scotland' or something like that. Still a double-.

I heard Jamie Oliver on Friday saying that he's recently discovered that his family origins go back to some Sudanese people eons ago. Surely that's an exciting thing to know about oneself, right?

I wonder if we are going full circle again.

Of course without a doubt in the (not that distant) past it was most definitely a racist/xenophobic question - and perhaps people did stop asking.

Now we living in a much more multicultural soceity a real melting pot and perhaps it is like Riven says - partly about "identifying" with a group.

IME you're just as likely to meet a black person who's been living in the UK less than 10yrs than you are a British born and bred Black person (as I said this is my experience).

Perhaps this is a slightly cackhanded way of going full circle and wanting to know more about people's heritage/identity.

People are (in general) more travelled/knowledgeable about the world - so in general don't think "black man=African" they're realising that we live in an amazing melting pot of cultural diversity and perhaps they're just wanting to expand their knowledge of it??

and I have just realised that I have just used a very non-PC term in my last post . I'm a Northern, left-hander who grew up with the term and still use it about myself when slipping into my "northern" speak (just been on the phone to my dad).

Apologies to all and sundry that I may have offended

MissM: Ladino is a Sephardic Jewish language, based on old Spanish (it's kind of equivalent to Yiddish, if you see what I mean?)

I get asked this question all the time as I have a bizarre accent (originally from South Africa) and have had stupid people respond "but you can't be. You're too pale/white". Seriously?!
I ask sometimes, but that's because I live in London and people are from all over the place. There is someone I know (who I haven't asked this yet), but am dying to find out as I have been trying to guess for WEEKS. His surname is German, but he doesn't sound German, and I don't recognise the language he speaks at all.

Why is 'cackhanded' considered offensive?

Riven: in my mind being Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a religion. I think a Muslim might say the same (please correct me if I'm wrong anyone here who's Muslim). Doesn't stop your friend from being jewish though (although ultra-orthodox Jews would dispute that!)

My point was that I have 'typically Jewish' dark curly hair, olive skin, brown eyes etc, so many people seem to assume I'm Spanish - I think they're genuinely interested though, not racist.

It's just making conversation, isn't it? I ask people sometimes if they have an accent that isn't from round these parts. Used to live in London so 8/10 of the people you meet are from other parts of the country or other nations, now live in London commuter belt which is roughly the same.

When I first moved to London, I was asked an awful lot, as people could tell I was Northern. And I definitely ask people who have Northern accents, as it makes me feel homesick. A few people have commented on my surname (Scottish) and I've had to explain my father is Welsh - you only need one ancestor among dozens of others to determine a surname. (My father's done some research and discovered it was his great-great grandad.)

Sometimes get asked if I'm Irish. Used to live in a very Irish part of London and the homeless drunks often used to claim me as one of their own!

The question of where you come from orginally depends on how you respond to it - it could be that the person thinks you're from somewhere else in the uk to where you live now or that they find something foreign about you. I would be surprised if someone was asking about ethnic origin from years/centuries ago.

Oh, and when I was a bridesmaid for a friend of mine who'd moved back to Ireland, we got asked if we were sisters in every wedding dress shop - even though she's a good four inches taller than me and has very striking straight, red hair... took me aback a little but she explained large Irish families often mean one sister inherits the dark hair gene, one the red hair.

MTR - it's a offensive term about left-handed people. I should know better being a lefty myself (both in the political and hand sense of the term) but I grew up using it in jovial fashion and only discovered it's offensive meaning when I was in my 20's.

I thought cackhanded meant clumsy. Often say it about myself!

"Riven: in my mind being Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a religion. I think a Muslim might say the same (please correct me if I'm wrong anyone here who's Muslim)."

'Riven: in my mind being Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a religion. I think a Muslim might say the same (please correct me if I'm wrong anyone here who's Muslim). Doesn't stop your friend from being jewish though'

I am muslim. Irs my religion. My ethnicity is white english. There's a clear difference between your genetic wossnames and your beliefs.
IMO

Yeah, me too edam!

DM, DH and DS are all left handed!

I refer to it as their birth defect

well it has it origins in being an offensive term - some aren't bothered by it (like you "phew" and myself) but I do know some find it to be horribly offensive so thought I'd better just cover my back.

I didn't notice the left handed comment! My mum and I are both lefties.

Ethnicity is meant to be self-identified and so it is up to the individual. It can be connected to culture, geographical location, biological characteristics, religion and so on.

It is up to each person to decide what aspects of their life define their ethnicity.

This question is not considered offensive where we live as Geneva is city with so many nationalities that you are more likely to meet an immigrant than a Genevan. I get asked that a lot. But then we confuse the hell out of everyone by speaking a mixture of German and English. Both fluently.

If someone hears us chatting to our DC in German then they are always confused when I say that I am Scottish. I have a regional German accent so that really gets the Germans confused. "You can't be Scottish, you have a Bavarian accent"

Added to that, DH is quite dark-skinned and is often asked if he is Turkish or Italian. A couple of times, we have been asked where he is from, they thought that I was German and he was the immigrant.

Now the DC sometimes speak French together so that is going to make things worse.

I think that's a fairly recent point of view, though, Milly, that developed after mass immigration. Previous generations would have said your ethnicity is Caucasian/Asian/Oriental (they would have used that term)/African etc. etc. etc. And it still is, technically - if you are having an academic or scientific conversation.

By NotQuiteCockney Mon 07-Sep-09 07:52:15 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"Where are you from?" is a bit of a direct question, but, imo, could be ok, depending on attitude and context. "Where are you from, originally?" is mindbogglingly rude. The questioner is rejecting the person's answer for where they're from and demanding a different one. They're saying, basically, 'you can't be from X, as you are not white.' Aren't they?

NQC summed it up much better than I could. To ask where someone is from is not that rude, but to reject their answer and ask where they're from ^originally* s rude. There's a difference.

Surely it depends on tone of voice and context, though? If someone is interested, they might want to know where your parents come from if it's likely it wasn't Britain. I've asked people about unusual surnames (although until Friday I'd never realised a very old colleague's was Polish, had never even thought about it).

Edam, there are lots of different ways of defining ethnicity in academic research. It depends on the research question.

Particularly interesting if you are having a chat with someone and their surname was changed by ancestors moving to this country. Turns out one acquaintance of mine with a very English name is Jewish (I had no idea) and all but one grandparent perished in the gas chambers. He was tracked down by a very distant cousin who spotted his name in a conference programme - cousin was the child of the only survivor on the continent.

Turns out spelling of my surname may have been changed by English officials when a Scottish ancestor moved to Ireland (before his child moved to Wales).

I agree with Edam. It depends on how you are asked.

I would ask this question simply because I am nosy. Not because I am racist or feel the the person in not really British. The same way I would ask where an unusual name originated.

If you are taking offence to this question, is it because you really want to associate yourself with being British, as opposed to "where-ever you are from originally"?

I had a friend who was "originally from Nigeria". His entire family was still there, he had Nigerian passport, yet he got awfully offended if somebody queried his ancestry, huffing and puffing he was British, as he had moved here when 16 (with his family yet they had all moved back).

I see it as a lack of pride in your heritage.

Maybe some erase their culture when they move, or their families move. I find that a little sad, but of course it is up to them.

Well quite, that's my point. Ethnicity is a bit more complicated that self-identification, although in general everyday use you do get to choose which bit of your heritage is most relevant.

FWIW my answer is 'half Welsh but my mother was adopted at the end of WW2, so we have no idea' - London was full of the allied nations at the time and it's entirely possible she was conceived somewhere else anyway.