Asking someone where they are from

Raymond Lin said:
That may be true but it’s a separate issue, the subject here is the conversation between the 2, not the name of her charity.

Conversation.

Charity.

They are 2 different things. When you press on with the different thing, you are deflecting and ignoring the conversation, not addressing it at all. You can do that but that means you admit she was 100% wrong, which is fine and we can move on and talk about the name of the charity.

If you don’t admit she was wrong then let’s address the conversation first.

I mean how would you like it if I deflect and bring in another subject? We will never get anywhere.
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It is related though. The black person from the charity (sorry don't know her name) is on one hand using stereotypical language to further hers/the charity's aims, yet on the other hand against stereotyping when it happened to her. It wouldn't be right to ignore this completely because if we do we risk allowing racial stereotyping when it suits certain minority agendas.

But back to the main point sure, SH got it wrong and in a position of seniority it was bad judgement, but I don't think she should have lost her job over it. Although at 83 it was probably retirement time anyway.

My main view is not so much that Im bothered by SH's bad judgement or the black woman from the charity, but it shouldn't be getting the airtime its getting.
 
110% said:
I actually think is a brilliant example, of people trying to find excuses to justify what happened.

The local Indian guy in the early 20th century would be educated enough to speak English to be able to ask the question, but not know where the white people in his country were from?
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Re-read what you just wrote.

You think it's ok for the Indian guy to ask, or make assumptions, yet in this case you act offended.
 
110% said:
yes, so no problem, she should ask everyone where they are from, not only the people with a tan. And when they answer don't say "but where are you really from?" and at the "I knew we'd get there in the end".

where are you from?
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Why would you ask someone with a spanish accent who looks spanish where are they really from when they say Spain?

Why would you ask someone with black skin, wearing traditional african clothes who says they are from England where they are really from?

Completely identical eh.

The fact that she said she identifies as English and yet clearly feels very strongly about her cultural heritage leads you to think that just perhaps her family is not British if you go back a generation or two.

Her language wasn't great but please stop with this weird false equivalence. Its not the basis for an argument. I'm sure you would be the first person to call out someone saying "white lives matter" because of the context and yet you are completely ignoring the context in this situation.
 
danlightbulb said:
It is related though. The black person from the charity (sorry don't know her name) is on one hand using stereotypical language to further hers/the charity's aims, yet on the other hand against stereotyping when it happened to her. It wouldn't be right to ignore this completely because if we do we risk allowing racial stereotyping when it suits certain minority agendas.

But back to the main point sure, SH got it wrong and in a position of seniority it was bad judgement, but I don't think she should have lost her job over it. Although at 83 it was probably retirement time anyway.

My main view is not so much that Im bothered by SH's bad judgement or the black woman from the charity, but it shouldn't be getting the airtime its getting.
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Whilst it may be related. They are not the same issue, happened at the same event.

The charity name was picked months, years, decades ago? Perhaps that topic has already come up and dealt with. Who knows.

The topic today is the conversation, so to drag something else into it, by the "claimant", is deflecting, taking the spotlight from the topic in the first place, aka moving the goal post.
 
Oh and the fact this woman from the charity is now milking this for all its worth and doing the media tour should tell you something about her motives and views. Shes now claiming it was "an abuse" and like an interrogation.

Perhaps we should get the views on how disgusting this use of language is from people who have suffered real abuse. She should know better about the power of language right?
 
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Bassmansam said:
No i wouldn't ask a white person the same because its not as interesting to me as i've seen them all of my life. If i was in conversation with black person dressed in traditional african clothing then i would ask them where they are from/ or where there heritage is from.

Its human nature to be curious about things that are not common.
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you said it was about heritage, but now you're saying you find the heritage of non-white people more interesting, so you wouldn't ask a white Russain in traditional dress about their heritage?

If that person responds "England" your "naturally curiosity" would make you follow up with "but where are you really from?" until you got response that you were happy with it (that person saying they are russain") and then say "I knew we'd get there in the end". Because you have decided that you can accept this last answer but you couldn't accept their previous answers.

This is not curiosity.
 
Bassmansam said:
If i saw a someone dressed in what appears to be traditional bright african clothing(not sure of the name) I would probably ask where the origin of said clothing/person is from?

Whats the problem..
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There would not have been a problem with that.

Not sure why you bring that up when the topic of this thread doesn't involve the scenario you made up.
 
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110% said:
yes, so no problem, she should ask everyone where they are from, not only the people with a tan. And when they answer don't say "but where are you really from?" and at the "I knew we'd get there in the end".

where are you from?
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It’s not a problem to ask people where they are from.

I’ve been to big conventions and business meetings and you always ask people where they are from. It’s standard conversation.

The problem is pursuing the question when you’ve already received an answer.

But it’s not a problem to ask people where they are from. It’s just normal conversation.
 
Everyone is ignoring this "I knew we'd get there in the end."

Why was she trying to get somewhere, if it was just interest in the heritage, or just curiosity?
 
rare said:
It’s not a problem to ask people where they are from.

I’ve been to big conventions and business meetings and you always ask people where they are from. It’s standard conversation.

The problem is pursuing the question when you’ve already received an answer.

But it’s not a problem to ask people where they are from. It’s just normal conversation.
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but I asked you where you're from? it's normal, why are you not answering?
 
Just so we don't have to have a million people asking the same thing -

No, there is nothing wrong with asking about someone's heritage.

That is not the topic of this thread though. This is about the interaction and how it was asked.
 
110% said:
you said it was about heritage, but now you're saying you find the heritage of non-white people more interesting, so you wouldn't ask a white Russain in traditional dress about their heritage?

If that person responds "England" your "naturally curiosity" would make you follow up with "but where are you really from?" until you got response that you were happy with it (that person saying they are russain") and then say "I knew we'd get there in the end". Because you have decided that you can accept this last answer but you couldn't accept their previous answers.

This is not curiosity.
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Now your twisting it, when you said white people at first i thought you meant white Brits. If a russian white person presented himself to me in traditional dress then yes i would ask about their heritage as i would be curious to know. This person may be born in England but i would bet my mortgage that they have heritage in Russia.
 
110% said:
Everyone is ignoring this "I knew we'd get there in the end."

Why was she trying to get somewhere, if it was just interest in the heritage, or just curiosity?
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I give up. If you ask someone "how old are you" and they say, "younger than you" and you keep having to basically repeat the question as they give evasive answer, why would you possibly remark at the end "I knew we would get there in the end".

She knew exactly the question that was being asked of her from the first sentence of their exchange. She was wilfully ignoring it for whatever reason. I imagine that the 83 year old was pretty annoyed at this by the end of it when she eventually gave the answer that was clearly the one to the original question.

If I grew up in a predominantly non-white country and someone asked me where I was from I would say "I was born in X but my parents were originally from Y" because I would assume that is what they are asking. If I just said "I was born in X" and they continued asking I would say "but my parents were originally from Y". Its really really simple. People are curious.
 
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It’s also important to remember that the woman’s hair was physically moved out the way. That’s completely unacceptable and says to me this ‘lady’ thought she was above the other one and was in a position of power that made this acceptable.
Add the questioning to the mix and to me it’s clear that the ‘lady’ clearly thought she was better than the other and this is wrong.
 
fez said:
I give up. If you ask someone "how old are you" and they say, "younger than you" and you keep having to basically repeat the question as they give evasive answer, why would you possibly remark at the end "I knew we would get there in the end".
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How is that the same example?

It would be more like asking somebody "how old are you" and they tell you their age, and you say - "No, how old are you really?" because they don't believe you.
 
VincentHanna said:
How is that the same example?

It would be more like asking somebody "how old are you" and they tell you their age, and you say - "No, how old are you really?" because they don't believe you.
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No it wouldn't because there is only one correct answer to that question. Where are you from is open ended and can be a very short answer or a very long one. If you give a short answer and someone keeps asking, they probably want the long version...
 
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