Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT strips 3931-3935 (4th to 8th February 2019)

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dutchrvl:

--- Quote from: Oenone on 08 Feb 2019, 09:19 ---Also, it’s othering because white Americans don’t ask other white Americans where they are from. It’s a question that implies you aren’t yourself American.

--- End quote ---

I get asked at least once a week where I am from, and I am as white as can be (have been in the US for >10 yrs now). I have always assumed the question was merely out of interest and been happy to talk about my background. There is still such a thing as genuine interest in people's stories....
To presume the same question to my non-white fellow expats is always coming from a bad place goes a bit far. My gf certainly doesn't presume that (ethnic Thai but in US for >20 years now, also gets asked regularly), should she?   

I don't disagree with the premise that for those with non-white ethnical backgrounds, the reason for being asked "where are you from" may more often be negative (and perhaps sometimes racist, yes), but depending on context/situation the question in fact may often be simply curiosity/interest in your story....
One of my friends (who is, like @Akima, ethnic Han, grew up in Canada and the USA) has been living in the Netherlands for a couple of years now.
For her, she took issue with the question where she is from the first year or so after moving to the Netherlands, for similar reasons as many have pointed out above. For her, it took about a year before she realized that the vast majority of people asking where simply doing so because they were interested in her and her personal story, not because they thought she wasn't a true Dutch citizen or didn't belong there. For her she said it had to a lot with her growing up and having had some bad experiences with being 'othered' back in Canada and to some degree the US though.

sitnspin:
The problem is that is often followed up with questions that dismiss your previous answers.
 Example:
"Where are you from?"
"New York."
"Yea, but where were you born?"
"New York"
"Okay but where are your parents from"

etc etc etc

Can the question be innocent? Yes. But it often belies an unspoken, and often unconscious, assumption that you are not, as Akima has pointed out, a real member of your society. I'm not saying that every white person who asks a POC where they are from is racist, but context is important. How and when the question is asked matters.  And equating the experiences of white folks who get asked that question and the experience of POC who get the same question is naive at best and disingenuous or willfully ignorant at worst.

Thrillho:
Okay, I express this as an exasperated human, not a mod.

But you would not believe how easy I found it to treat people with more respect when my response to people with colour or anyone who has a characteristic I do not share was to just listen and enact what they ask.

My experience, as a white, cis, queer male, is not the same as that of people of colour, women, transpeople, non-binary people, and arguably straight men although I moved comfortable in those circles for decades so I definitely got a pretty strong experience of it.

These experiences simply are not comparable, even as a white person in a country where that makes you a minority.

Life got so much easier when I stopped white person responding and just started listening and enacting. It's not like I am saying there is no room for discussion, and I am not singling anyone out.

Nobody is calling anyone a monster, or an asshole, or racist or even 'a racist.' They are telling you their experience, and it also shouldn't be their job to do that anyway, so frankly I am just eternally grateful whenever I get to hear these experiences and thoughts.

This is WAY more strawman than this thread deserves, but I have been thinking about this a lot lately and the more I realise how much my own behaviour can be both charmed and damaging the more I wonder how some minority folk aren't just screaming endlessly into a pillow whenever they have to interact with others.

Is it cold in here?:
Tova, thought provoking.

Is it cold in here?:

--- Quote from: OldGoat on 11 Feb 2019, 03:27 ---
--- Quote from: BenRG on 10 Feb 2019, 23:33 ---Seriously, mate, how long did you sweat over a notepad to compose that?

--- End quote ---
No sweat and not long at all.  I'm worthless at constructing rhymes, but alliteration just rolls out of my skull.

--- End quote ---

I'd enjoy seeing an alliteration competition between you and Akima.

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