Eric Stoller's blog

It’s generally accepted that I’m Latino, and most people assume I’m Mexican. However, the couple of times someone’s explicitly asked what I am, I just say “I’m Mexican.” No biggie, and I don’t get offended in the slightest. It’s harder to pinpoint a person of color and try and figure out his or her ethnicity. Go up to any random white person and ask “what are you?” and they’ll probably respond in one of two ways. 1) “I’m white,” or 2) “Well I’m half-German, a quarter Irish, I think one of my great-great-grandparents was part Cherokee, my mom was half-Italian, and I think I have some Greek in me too!” Or something along those lines, heh.

If it makes you feel any better, we asked our (white) landlord, albeit indirectly, what he was. We noticed his last name was Zito, and asked him “What kind of last name is Zito?” to which he responded “oh, it’s Italian.” No offense was meant by asking to satisfy our curiosity, and none was taken by him either.

As a fellow “person of color,” I too was curious as to what Wendy “was” the first time I met her back in NYC. Was I trying to lump her in some category, or “place her” into something? Nope! I was just curious :p And just to satisfy my curiosity, I asked her at the Ginger Man what ethnicity she was, and she told me, and that was that. Was it some sort of social faux pas I committed then, on par with Mr. Salesman? Or was it somehow _okay_ for me to have asked her what she was because I myself am also a person of color (and not white)?

Or are you just weirded out that the exchange happened while shopping for shoes, in which case it’s more of the context of how and where the question was asked more so than the actual question itself?

out of curiosity, what did the guy talk to you about? if he did at all?

me? if I really wanted to know, I’d ask and try not to come off as hostile. “You know, we’ve been shopping a lot these past couple of weeks and Wendy’s been asked that a few times. i’ve known wendy so long, I can’t remember what people see that’s different.”

I wouldn’t do this as a learning experience for him, more to find out what’s going on — coz i’m curious.

I agree that an aspect of WP is that you don’t get asked. No one has to ask. But then, no one asks black people if they conform to certain visual cues, either. Which doesn’t mean that privilege is going on there. Just assumptions about what certain visual cues mean.

part of what’s going on, I think, is that people ask when their codes to answer the WHY question without asking are messed with.

(totally not related, but as a kid i went on a group tour of france as part of a club i started to earn money to go on such a trip. bake sales, raffles, car washes, that sort of thing. walking down the street, not talking, was enough to be accosted by people who said, “Are you American?” Just the cues of our clothes were enough: at the time, down vests were the rage, so that was enough to mark us “Americans.” Of course, there, the only thing that was going on was white male privilege and our being asked wasn’t because the person harbored dislike per se. though, hell, we *were* rude Americans when I think about that trip. nothing like a bunch of drunken, screaming 15 and 16 year olds on the Seine boat tour screaming like idiots at the mini statue of liberaty, while students from Germany, England, Italy, Japan, and elsewhere behaved themselves.)

I do actually get asked and ask the WAY question of other white folks sometimes–usually it’s when i think maybe person has a heritage like mine for some reason and for whatever reason i feel like talking about such things at the moment. Asked one guy recently if he has any Russian in his background (“do you have a little Russian in you? well, would you like one?”–sorry), he was just physically reminding me so much of my granddad. Wasn’t as it turns out.

so, yeah, i think those questions can range from innocuous, albeit still annoying if you’re really not in the mood for them, to, well, that: unconcsious assumptions about “others,” and the need to divide people into neat little boxes.

I get TOLD my ethnicity all the time, not asked. “You’re Irish!” I don’t really care because I am fairly obviously Irish-American – my name, my skin, hair, eyes, stature. Why they need to say so, I don’t know, but I declare my observations all the time for no real reason, so …

Anyway, one of my coworkers is multiracial and I find that all these people try to be polite and not ask her, “What are you?” all the time by asking me, “So, what is C?” That seems even weirder.

There’s also the issue of how it’s asked: “What are you?” or, as someone asked me about C recently, “Why are her eyes all chinky?” … I mean, umm, yeah someone might thing you’re rude when you ask those things, jerk! There are better things.

I often just tell people I’m white when I’m asked that question. It makes for great faces of confusion.

Curiosity. It seems to be a powerful driving force in human beings. Was there any sort of problem with his curiosity? Or, was there a problem with the framework that he used to deploy his curiosity? The very same framework many of us were taught – or inherited. Is there some evidence that this guy was acting in any way other than curious, yet unaware.

There may be a certain epistemic privilege zealously assumed (presumed?) by those who claim to understand socially constructed categories. Wielding this privilege in a dominant manner isn’t – at it’s core – too different from wielding ignorance that sustains dominance as it manifests in racist, sexist, heterosexist attitudes. Moreover, wielding epistemic privilege against genuine human curiosity may be re-creating fertile ground for ignorance.

What do you think he really, truly wanted to know? About what was he genuinely curious?

How many responses to this situation seemed to agonized over the fact that a “white person” wasn’t centralized or, at least, included as an object of inquiry. Wait – what??? White people aren’t in the spotlight???

Anyone interested in paying attention to the “margins?” The “center” is getting a little too much air time.

…now, where did I leave my bell hooks books?

Maybe I failed to communicate the two main points I had? Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Once in a while, I get asked if I’m Swedish, although that was mainly when I was in New Zealand.

One of my ex-boyfriends is Latino and his family is from Peru and Guatamala. People usually either assumed he was Mexican( Latino ethnicity in the West as often defined by Whites for all Latinos ) or they would ask him. His skin darkened in the summer time and then he would be assumed to be Brazilian.