To think that all because there are other black women in the room ...

[Asana]

... does not automatically mean that we know each other/came together?

I was at a baby playgroup today and arrived later than usual. There were two other black women in the room with their children. After a few minutes, one of the organisers came up to me and said that my friend had been asking about the group/how it works etc. I told her that I wasn't sure whom she was referring to, given that I didn't know anyone there this week. She then said to me, "Oh, I mean your friend over there. Didn't you arrive together?" When I told her we didn't as I had only just arrived, she said that she thought I and the two other women had come in together and knew each other. It later transpired that the other two women didn't know each other either, nor had they arrived at the same time and, up until that point, none of us had so much as uttered a word to each other. This leads me to wonder why oh why she automatically assumed that we were friends.

At an 02 shop last week, all the sales reps were sitting down with customers, so I decided to patiently wait in line. Sitting at the desk in front of me were a male sales rep and a female customer, who was black. A woman came into the shop with her daughter and we got to talking (usual random chat about the weather etc). When the male sales rep in front of me finished with his customer, he went to the main desk and asked who was next. The woman went straight to the desk and started asking him about the mobile phone deals they were currently advertising. I spoke up and told her that I was first and had been waiting for some time. As she didn't seem to hear me, her daughter re-iterated what I'd just said. She looked back at me and said, "Oh, I thought you were with the lady that just left. I'll be done soon." And she proceeded to turn around and continue her conversation with the rep.

This happens more times than I would care to admit and it really gets my goat. AIBU to be annoyed at these assumptions and say to people that do this (with a sardonic raised eyebrow like so ), "Not all black people know each other or are directly related, you know ..." ?

YANBU

I am very dark (father english with dark hair, mother british - she was born in the Seychelles to french parents - she has red hair)people always ask 'where are you from' me 'england', 'no i mean originally?' me 'england, i was born just outside london' ' oh what about yr parents?' obv once they hear mum was born in the seychelles that explains my colouring!!! FFS

also on holiday with DH (blonde), DD(blonde) and my best friend(blonde), i was asked by a posh families nanny if i was the nanny, i said no i am the mother, she was gobsmacked, apparently we had been the gossip of the resort because DH and i often went off for moonlight walks etc whilst BF and DD were in the room, they thought DH was bonking the nanny!

YADNBU!!

This reminds me of when I lived in a council hostel, the man downstairs from me was bald, the caretaker was bald, both black guys. Poor man had tenants knocking on his door all the time, talking about blocked sinks, complaining about other tenants. He put a sign up on his door saying he wasn't the caretaker but a lot of the other tenants didn't speak English so just carried on.

OP

Every time I tell someone "Im originally from Denmark" I get told Ohh I have a danish friend you must meet her.. err why?? do you think we will get on?

no YNBU and yes its irritating and after 20 years in the UK I still have NO CLUE how to make it stop

Must be something about 02 shops. Exactly the same thing happened to me whey I was waiting in O2 in Bluewater. Unlike you, I insisted on being served next. I'm white.
It is stunning though to realise how thoughtless some people can be. You must want to stand in the middle of a room screaming sometimes.

Yanbu! That sort of behaviour is highly offensive.

I DO find it difficult though when I meet new people and it's obvious which child belongs to which parent because of ethnicity yet I don't want to just assume that the only black child in the room belongs to the only black mum. To assume so seems like all I can see is skin colour, but if you say to the mum 'which child is yours?' does that seem strange?

What do you think?

YANBU. What you need to do is to look at them, very confused, and ask "Why did you think we knew each other?"

Just for funsies, really. It's amusing to watch them stutter and splutter and go a funny colour

It's best to challenge people - in a nice way!

I am reminded of when my husband went to the pub. The bloke serving asked where he was from, originally. My husband said "Kenya" and the bloke replied that his cousin is married to a guy who's from Nigeria (I've just asked my husband if he remembers it cos I couldn't remember the exact story. I thought it was he knew someone or he'd been to someplace or something)

My husband replied to him that it was like the bloke going to Kenya, and telling someone he was English and them replying that they knew someone from Poland.

Like my health visitor who when my husband said he was Kenyan, told us how she'd visited India. [boggle]

Sometimes I just want to crack open peoples' heads and peer inside just to see if there's anything in there!

Oh, I just read this thread to my husband and he says that when he was living back home, he noticed white people and when he happened to see a few together, he would assume they were together. He says that it's just a stupid assumption people make. He says that if 2 people with bright purple hair went into a shop, people would probably assume they were together. He agrees it's stupid but he doesn't take offence because he's done it himself. He says the best thing is to see the funny side of it.

Oh heck I've started him off now He says that back home, people always used to assume that white people all spoke English, so they'd talk to them in English.

Assumptions assumptions. We are all guilty of them.

lol reminds me of my nana... my SIL is a lesbian, i was talking to nana who asked if she was married etc and i told her and she asked if she knew soandso's daughter whos also a lesbian?

SIL lives in edinburgh...we live in lancashire

its a club dontcha know?

Oh lord, he won't shut up now he's telling me about this bloke who told him he must go to such and such a place and he'd love it because there are "lots of people from Africa"

To which he says he used to reply that if he was looking for people from Africa, moving to England was a big mistake.

Several years ago, a 60-something man from Liverpool was visiting my town in the US. So, naturally, every other person he talked to assumed he personally knew all 4 Beatles!

Yanbu - it happens to me all the time. On the assumption front my midwife put my race down as caucasion on my booking form. . I am mixed race and could not in a month of sundays pass as white.

Ok so I get this all the time but I do live very rurally and I dont usually take offence.

FWIW I love it when people ask where I am from. When I know that they are asking me where I am from ethnically I usually respond with the name of the village where I live in rural Norfolk. They usually then say that they meant where I was born. I love replying that I was born in Chelmsford. They generally dont have the guts to ask anything further.

Tis all true btw

When I was a student I used to look after groups of american school kids on their Uk tours over the holidays, so got to meet one or two coachloads of them a week - lots and lots of americans.

I always got the 'do you know xxx - he/she is from England...' as so many others on this thread seem to have (as well as the Queen / Beatles / famous pop stars and actors etc).

I always tried to explain that it was a bit like me saying I knew somebody from the USA or their State and did they know them, which some of them got, some of them didn't.

And then one day - I did actually know the family that they knew in the UK . The adults were quite good friends of my parents. So used to mentally thinking 'here we go again, how ridiculous yadda yadda yadda...' and ended up nearly falling off my seat when I did know them

Bucharest - YES I get this all the time too - even from people who know me quite well, the conversation will turn to 'do you think you'll ever go back to London then?' well.. err.. I've never lived in London, so probably not.

Had an Indian lady at the gym tell me that she was having some of 'my people' over for dinner, and asking me how I would go about cooking a chicken for them.. I suppressed a grin at the wording and tried to describe roast chicken, but she settled on sweet and sour as her mind was totally boggled at the idea of doing nothing but putting the chicken in the oven and waiting.

Definitely just bad at small talk for the first, and terribly rude for the second, and people do it everywhere with no harm meant (usually)

The OP is DNBU..but I reckon it is thoughtlessness, not maliciousness that makes people say such crap!

I sometimes do wine marketing at public trade shows...our biggest client is a Chilean wine company, we give samples to the public and talk to them about the wine. Lots ask us if we are Chilean (I am just your regular white skinned, brown haired slightly mongrelly European chick), when I say no I am British, then they still have to launch off about their hols in Chile and the amazing people they met (Had I met them too?) and what's the names of all the workers at the vineyard just in case they happen to go there on hol again in the future and could look them up and remember me to them....etc etc. I have never been to Chile but that doesnt seem to matter!

Hahaaa- i see I've been beaten to the ol' Beatles assumption

DP and I try to make each other laugh by replying with a straight face that "Oh yes, my mum used to babysit John Lennon" or somesuch...