One should respect a person's potential wish to keep some personal information private, and choose what to divulge. People can be sensitive for all sorts of reasons- you never know what kind of race-based crap they might have had to deal with in their life. So it is understandable that many people are cagey about it. We dont typically ask people what religion they are, or how much money they have, or what political party they belong to either. Same with race and ethnicity. It shouldnt matter, fundamentally. Why do you want to know? A person is a person. But everybody grew up somewhere and that question seems to be neutral enough to be non-threatening. People can share what they want, but it isnt polite to put them on the spot.
On Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:47 PM Randy Bennell via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > On 29/04/2020 4:20 PM, Andrew Strasfogel via Mercedes wrote: > > Yes - that is what I always ask. Solves all the awkward bits and allows > a > > foreign born person to brag on their heritage. > > > but does not give you any information on their basic ethnic background > if they were born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Why has it become somehow > wrong to ask a person who obviously looks Asian if they have a Korean > background? Some would not wish to be considered Chinese etc. > > We are getting a fair number of black people here now. To my mind, it is > more interesting to know that they are from Nigeria rather than ST. > Paul, Minnesota. > > RB > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
