More questions you aren’t allowed to ask:
Again, as so often, the umbrage seen above is pretentious and implicitly non-reciprocal. If I were to migrate to live in, say, South Korea and Korean people sometimes asked me where I was from, even if they did this several years after my arrival, I wouldn’t think it inherently impolite or malicious. It might get a little hackneyed, a little boring, but I very much doubt that it would make me feel “sick, frustrated, and uncomfortable.” And were I to get all pissy and indignant about being asked this humdrum question, I suspect Ms Vasudevan and her peers would be ready to scold me for my “privilege” and “fragility,” my “whiteness.”
Doing my inventory check.
Beer.
Wine.
Vodka.
Jack Daniels.
Irish Whiskey.
All my essentials are in place…
Go ahead…make my day.
I’m ahead of the curve on this one. I interact with foreigners as little as I can and don’t give a shit where they’re from, I just wish they’d stayed there.
GO LEAFS GO!
A very limiting approach, Arty. When you interact with foreigners, you learn something, about the individual of course but also about the foreign culture (good, bad, indifferent).
On the other hand, being a Leafs fan is perhaps not consistent with learning?
I welcome conservative immigrants who come here legally, work hard, and appreciate the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their children. That’s what our grandparents and great grandparents did, and that’s what helped make Canada and the USA great countries. But unappreciative liberals and worthless ticks who come here to suckle on the government teat can go back to wherever they came from. And they can take all of the unappreciative hater libs who hate this country and who reneged on their promise to leave the country if Trump got elected with them.
I want them to take my jobs and lower my wages- LEGALLY!
Being a naturalized Canadian, whose mother tongue isn’t English, I often ask people if they’re from the old country. I figure that gives us something in common and, maybe, we could swap a few stories.
People like the young lady in question simply need to get over themselves. Asking that question has very little to do with privilege or racism.
Yes, and it seems that liberals, wherever they’re from, share multiple common traits:
An inflated value of self worth,
A level of arrogance that far exceeds their IQ,
Zero sense of humor, &
An exceedingly thin skin.
Feel free to add to the list.
Response: “Don’t flatter yourself…you aren’t that interesting”.
If you can trap someone in a whatever-phobic remark, you pretty much have grad school locked down. Edit out the provocation part up front. Study your market: which social platform works best for outrage!
Some “foreigners” are quite happy and proud to tell you where they came from. Many like to clear the air knowing others may wonder.
Of course that’s having a basic understanding that not all people have the same personality regardless of where they come from, something “Liberals” don’t apply to non-white peoples.
My wife is from Japan. She told me she was disappointed that more people don’t talk to her and ask her where she is from. When I travelled in Asia EVERYBODY asks where you are from. And where you are going and why you are here. It is the oldest subject of conversation.
I’ve often had conversations with people from Germany, particularly those who are older. I remember some senior citizens I spoke with and we went so far as to compare which ships we came over on and when.
@Alan Brown
Indeed, I’ve worked and travelled Asia, SEA extensively, it’s the number two question anywhere I’ve travelled in those regions and others. It’s a social norm, if people are offended they are either social rejects or agenda driven Western Liberals.
The number one question(s) are “how are you”? – “what can I do for you today sir” and “Where you like to go”?
The second question breaks the formal ice. Everywhere.
I think conversation as entertainment is being lost in the digital age. Now conversation is for combat between anonymous sources.
True, as well as an anonymous outlet for aggressive mental illness like we frequently see on SDA posts, especially with this Ukraine/ Russia BS.
No conversation, no debate just anonymous ranting and flame wars pretending that other opinions are being influenced and that they will somehow magically influence the outcome of global affairs with a keyboard.
It’s a sad state of modern society.
Alan
I cannot disagree…a quick look around on any busy downtown street and the majority walk along like domesticated animals with their intellect such that it is, buried miles deep in an iPhone13.
Especially the young.
As to where are you from.? I ask that of near anyone with a European accent…trying to guess if they are Dutch. Im at the point of near 80% success.
Not met a single person offended EVER.
Your wife and I would get along famously! 🙂
My younger brother moved from Saskatchewan to Australia about 15 years ago. He got tired of being asked if he was American, so he started making an effort to wear clothing with typical ‘Canadian’ designs. (Wearing a Toronto Blue Jays shirt in Toronto, New South Wales, attracted no attention at all!) On one visit, we went to an Aussie Football League game in Melbourne, wearing Saskatchewan Roughrider jerseys! Sitting at concourse level, at least three times during the game, people walking behind us yelled out ‘GO RIDERS!’ We were approached many times by people who had visited or lived in Canada, and wanted to tell us about their time here. Most had been only in Western Canada. And we met a family from Prince Edward Island who were vacationing in Oz.
I guess you could say my features are Nordic and I’m always asked about my ancestry, some like to play Let me Guess the Country – Game rules: 2 cracks at it only and if you think you have a one in five chance you’d be wrong.
So what?? I look at it as nothing more than people being curious and making conversation. Seriously, get over yourself, the whole world ain’t all spinnin’ around you hon.
the company I work for runs regular diversity indoctrination sessions, and at one of them there was a former Raptor, and he brought up how the “where are you from?” question made him feel as an “Other” because he was not from Canada. He wanted to education us about how terrible that question is, and how he felt like he wasn’t a real Canadian every time he was asked that question by a white person (and only white people).
Because of his racist bias, he couldn’t see that “Where are you from?” isn’t an attack, but a conversation starter that often is an expression of interest in your background, and attempt to learn more about you, and it’s even asked of those “White People” that offend you so
He wanted to education us about how terrible that question is, and how he felt like he wasn’t a real Canadian every time he was asked that question by a white person (and only white people).
He needs to get over himself, too. I grew up being called all sorts of nasty names because of how I spoke English when I was younger. It wasn’t nice, but, rather than being defeated by it, it made me determined to prove to myself that I was as good, if not better, than my detractors. I think my university education accomplished that.
”Please do not ask me … Where are you from … question”
And this woman identifies herself as a “writer”? Ostensibly an English writer? Where is her grammar from? Her hate-filled sign would read better as … Please do not ask me THE ‘where are you from’ question. Something lost in the Hindi translation? Or the Canadian translation?
I suppose it IS a sensitive question for people who have FLED their shithole countries of origin. An admission they’ve come to the West for a better life. With far less racism, hate, and despair than their shithole countries of origin. There mere presence here is an admission of the inferiority of their birth country. I suppose that could make them feel … awkward.
Pro tip: we are a melting pot. Start melting … then you won’t care when people ask you about the old country
Consider that the New World doesn’t require race or bloodlines or castes.
Imagine someone not caring that your grandfather was from Hong Kong or Norway and that you are seen as one of the neighbours.
This is bad how?
When I say my family has lived in Canada for 200 years I’m not believed because unless you’re ‘First Nations’ everyone is an immigrant who arrived yesterday. Only in a ‘post national nation’ could we have a Prime Minister denigrate the citizenry.
@Kenji – “an admission of the inferiority of their birth country.”
That’s changing fast. It’s hard to see a difference with tent cities, frequent riots, ever growing ghettos with mass robberies & murder as superior.
The only difference (for now) with all but the poorest countries is the “welfare check for a vote” scheme. Most so called “developing nations” have a better and safer standard of living than they would experience in an American immigrant community next door to a ghetto.
I mean, isn’t the best answer to this thing just to shrug, say fuck off ( pardon my language) and the go on asking people where they are from? Before the internet we didn’t hear so much from these morons and their stupid ideas died in darkness. Now we give them oxygen by reading them and worse yet arguing their merits or lack thereof.
If you want people to be more welcoming and accepting, then one should insist on those sorts of questions.
If she is really tired of answering certain questions, she can politely decline to answer them.
If not, she is being removed and cold.
This also leads to another point: teaching people the language of the majority. With that, their academic and professional prospects improve and they develop personal connections a lot more easily.
I remember one student in one of my Armpit College courses who came to me one day and said that he was going to be absent. He had to be in court that day and I simply answered that “these things happen”, assuming it was a criminal matter.
He promptly corrected me by stating that his appointment was for citizenship court and I not only congratulated him, having had my day in one many years earlier, but I urged him to attend as it was something he didn’t want to miss.
I then asked him where he was from. He answered Iraq, though reluctantly as it was about a year after Desert Storm. “Really?” I thought as I could have sworn he was from Europe based on his accent alone. Besides, the war was over and it was against Saddam Hussein, not him. Even so, it didn’t make any difference to me as he was a genuinely nice kid.
It’s a pity that I lost touch with him over the years.
I will sometimes ask someone obviously not from here where they came from.
After they answer, I then say: WHY HERE? ANYWHERE BUT HERE, GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!