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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3074 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How the question "Where are you from?" comes with baggage for immigrants and POC

Dude, they ask about my wife, too, and her name is about as Teutonic as you could possibly imagine (most people on Facebook spell it with a ß). AND she looks the part - chick coulda walked off the pages of Heidi and you'd think nothing of it.

The same people who will ask about European-sounding names are the exact same ones that aren't allowed to ask about names from literally anywhere else.





Isherwood  ·  3074 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The same people who will ask about European-sounding names are the exact same ones that aren't allowed to ask about names from literally anywhere else.

I just don't know about anywhere else. I went through a family tree phase recently and learned a lot about names from a few european countries, but outside of that I'm pretty ignorant. That said, I also never really liked the lineage small talk, it always seems to dead end pretty quickly for me:

"That an interesting name, is is German."

"Yes, my great, great grandfather was German."

"...good for him?"

kleinbl00  ·  3074 days ago  ·  link  ·  

And that's part of the problem: it's small-talk, used as a silence-filler by people who don't know each other. The goal of asking is "say something I can relate to" - so in your example, you're hoping for "my dad was German" which you can follow up with "Oh yeah? I've been there twice! Where in Germany?" and now you have a vague, thin, irrelevant point of affinity between you and this total stranger.

The argument of the article is "don't look for affinity with me in any possible way, because everything you do as a white person offends me."

thenewgreen  ·  3074 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Man, trust me I know when it's a "that's an interesting name" inquiry and when it's a "that name doesn't fit" inquiry. It's pretty obvious. Then theres the "you aren't fit for the name boy," inquiry which is rare, but happens. More so in South Carolina...

I took a meeting at a business that was literally right across the street from this place and had that third type of inquiry. Pricks.

mknod  ·  3073 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't know what I expected when I clicked. I did not expect something so overtly racist. I mean the place is named after a derogatory term for other human beings. CMON HUMANS GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.

kleinbl00  ·  3074 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That is a... shockingly racist establishment.

user-inactivated  ·  3074 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My father was on a first name basis with this guy when I was a kid. South Carolina is a special place.