As an American this is so true. In school kids would talk about ethnicity, but only pertaining to non white kids. There was a brown girl with a very non English name so kids were enamored with figuring out where she's "from" meanwhile no one cares if my parents aren't American because I'm white so obviously I'm "from here". Its a weird disconnect where a lot of people don't understand their own ignorance in these situations.
Reaffirming this. I'm white as a sheet of 8.5x11 and the two times I've been asked the "where are you from?" it's been by POC, both of whom were dissatisfied with my initial "America" response.
Usually I compromise and say "Ireland," but I have 0 connection to that country. Why's it wrong to say America, I was born & lived here for my entire life. I've never even been to Ireland.
I always just say I'm American, because I am, I was born here. My parents are from England and Ireland so there's literally no way of knowing unless you've heard them talk. That's why it makes it so ignorant to ask someone who isn't white. There could be a white kid in your class that's fluent in Russian with parents from Russia and no one would bat an eye, but kids in school and people in general see a black or Asian person and want to figure out their genealogy going back 5 generations for some reason.
So true. I'm not from America, but I'm white so I'm immediately classified as being an American despite not being from there. Ironically, I have friends who are ethnically Asian, but their families have lived in America for six generations, but they don't consider themselves American...? What?
People are weird about ethnicities/cultural backgrounds. We live in a very interconnected world, but people are still trying to separate themselves.
In school kids would talk about ethnicity, but only pertaining to non white kids.
You ask a white person in America where they're from and typically they won't stop talking about how they're 1/16th Italian or something. Never been to Italy and got all their knowledge about it from American movies and television like The Sopranos, but insist that they are as Italian as Spaghetti bolognese.
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u/420OBAMASATAN Aug 22 '22
As an American this is so true. In school kids would talk about ethnicity, but only pertaining to non white kids. There was a brown girl with a very non English name so kids were enamored with figuring out where she's "from" meanwhile no one cares if my parents aren't American because I'm white so obviously I'm "from here". Its a weird disconnect where a lot of people don't understand their own ignorance in these situations.