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Topic	"so what are you?"
SeabassDebeste 10/31/17 4:51:39 PM #96:	Lopen posted... I'm not saying you should lighten up to make white people more comfortable I'm saying you should lighten up for your own sake. If you feel victimized by stuff like this, which will happen with anyone who has any sort of distinctive different feature regardless of race, just getting by in society must be a constant struggle. Basically, you can make anything about race or nationality if you really want to-- just as you can take any other question or comment defensively in any sort of way. If I were a different person, I might be upset at constantly being guessed as polish, or getting occasional questions about whether I do marijuana (because I have long hair?) or people assuming I'm some tech geek because I'm a software engineer or know how to fix their computer, or whatever else. But I just don't care-- how many social faux pas or assumptions the person you're talking to shouldn't matter as much as their tone, reactions, eye contact, etc. Those are the kind of things that should make you feel awkward or irritated. In icebreaker conversation the words just don't really matter all that much. 1. was addressing santa with that comment; he definitely commented about making white people uncomfortable. 2. i'm personally fine (other than being physically assaulted earlier this year by a racist making racist remarks). i don't feel personally victimized at all by questions like this. like i said earlier, i'm not 'getting offended' on behalf of myself; it's more systemic and it does inform people's identities - it's the type of stuff that forces identity upon you based on circumstance instead of choice. and it's not entirely trivial; language influences thought. 3. long hair and profession are choices. and your point about having an eastern european last name that doesn't bother you is fine - but what about the tons of poles and russians who changed their name to avoid this type of question? our president's name comes from one such change in effort to become more 'regular white.' --- yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness <cite>SeabassDebeste posted [p:889511329] in "so w... [t:75940246]...</cite> <quote><cite>Lopen posted...</cite> <quote>I'm not saying you should lighten up to make white people more comfortable I'm saying you should lighten up for your own sake. If you feel victimized by stuff like this, which will happen with anyone who has any sort of distinctive different feature regardless of race, just getting by in society must be a constant struggle. Basically, you can make anything about race or nationality if you really want to-- just as you can take any other question or comment defensively in any sort of way. If I were a different person, I might be upset at constantly being guessed as polish, or getting occasional questions about whether I do marijuana (because I have long hair?) or people assuming I'm some tech geek because I'm a software engineer or know how to fix their computer, or whatever else. But I just don't care-- how many social faux pas or assumptions the person you're talking to shouldn't matter as much as their tone, reactions, eye contact, etc. Those are the kind of things that should make you feel awkward or irritated. In icebreaker conversation the words just don't really matter all that much. </quote> 1. was addressing santa with that comment; he definitely commented about making white people uncomfortable. 2. i'm personally fine (other than being physically assaulted earlier this year by a racist making racist remarks). i don't feel personally victimized at all by questions like this. like i said earlier, i'm not 'getting offended' on behalf of myself; it's more systemic and it does inform people's identities - it's the type of stuff that forces identity upon you based on circumstance instead of choice. and it's not entirely trivial; language influences thought. 3. long hair and profession are choices. and your point about having an eastern european last name that doesn't bother you is fine - but what about the tons of poles and russians who changed their name to avoid this type of question? our president's name comes from one such change in effort to become more 'regular white.' --- yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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