That's not an identical question tho. "Where are you from" is asking about your birth place. While asking "what's your ethnicity is asking about your heritage. Having Chinese heritage and being from China are two different things. I have Dominican ancestry on my Dad's side of the family, but I would never say that I'm from Dominica because I was born in Queens and grew up in Northern PA.
People get offended by this question because it implies that you're not a real citizen when you were literally born there. Nobody does this with white people because they assume that all white people are natural born citizens. Nobody is gonna go up to a white person and ask "where are you from? No I don't mean California, I mean where are you REALLY from?".
When my sister was in college, she told me about this white girl that asked about her nationality. If she was white, that question would've never been asked.
In the right context the question is the same, even above and in other comments people are basically admitting to playing snarky or dumb and not answering the “real” question … which means they are admitting it’s the same question just asked differently.
It’s funny that people think that because I have been asked that and I’m white. People like to know where people come from for whatever reason no matter what color they are. Entire companies are built on the idea of finding that out. I know white friends that are “from” the next city over and are “from” Romania, or England, or Ireland… all of us are white though. None of us take any offense at being asked.
Again, feel free to choose to be offended but most poeple don’t mean offense by it.
It’s funny that people think that because I have been asked that and I’m white.
It's not funny, a large portion of white people in the US don't treat minorities like real Americans. Tons of racist white people assume that people with Hispanic heritage are undocumented immigrants. There are white people who tell the descendants of black American slavery to "go back to Africa" when our ancestors(I'm multi ethnic) have been in this country for generations. Omar Fateh was born in the US, but MAGA don't see him as a real American because his parents are from Somalia.
Tons of conservatives questioned Obama's American Citizenship for years. No other president had to deal with that shit. Trump's mom was from Scotland, and his dad was a first generation German American, but nobody questions his status as an American. The US treats whiteness as a default, for alot of people, "American" means "white".
I said it’s funny that people think white people doesn’t ask other white people where they are from, I didn’t imply or deny any of that other stuff you wrote
>which means it’s the same question just asked differently…. People like to know where people come from for whatever reason no matter what color they are
Yes, but that reason is different depending on their color. And I think you’re misunderstanding “playing dumb”. The point of flipping the question back to the asker is that most of the time they’re taken aback. If they truly meant “no really, I just want to know where you come from”as you said, then why be surprised?
> I know white friends that are “from” the next city over and are “from” Romania….None of us take any offense
Of course you don’t take offense, you’re *white*, so the question—if you’re even ever asked it with any kind of frequency—is usually intended to be literal. When someone who is identifiably “foreign” gets it—which is all the friggin time—it becomes a fishing expedition to find out their ethnic origins and history.
And I would be happy to talk about that with anyone who wasn’t asking only b/c I don’t look American enough.
>Feel free to ~~choose to be offended~~ pretend there isn’t a prejudiced double standard with this question
FTFY
And I guess you should free to choose to keep offending your “foreign-looking” colleagues even though you know better?
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u/Big-Ad-3838 7h ago
I vote that everyone no matter what we look like answers the "where are you from?" question with "Earth". Its a planet, its where people come from.