"What are you?"

(The Enter button got hit too early, this is still being typed up...now it's finished.)

This is actually something about me that baffles people. I suffer from rather severe...I don't think it's the exact sort of face blindness that prosopagnosia would infer, but...I literally cannot tell people apart. Race, gender, none of that stuff really registers to me. Most of the time I can say what someone is, but other times, I'm clueless. I have literally mixed up a black man and a white woman before...and let me tell you that's hard as hell to explain.

This being said, I've actually come to work rather well with it, and I've learned other ways to distinguish people...hairstyles and clothing usually, and to be frank it doesn't much bother me.

The comment I get most frequently from others when I tell them about it is a vaguely horrified "How can you LIVE like that?" It seems like a lot of people find it somehow necessary to be able to look at someone and know "what they are", and are bothered by the concept of someone being unable to. I haven't quite figured out what to make of that yet, just another "normal person" thing that I find quietly puzzling, I suppose

Myself, I'm told I'm German with a heavy dose of Cherokee and Choctaw blood, and bits of Scottish, Irish, and Welsh. So far as I can tell, I'm of a pale yellow-brown tone with gray eyes and dyed red hair with bangs, with a prominent mole/beauty mark on my right cheek. That's about all I've got though.

edited 1st Feb '12 9:55:11 PM by MystyGlyttyr

I generally have a fairly boring ancestry race-wise (from most of the British Isles essentially, and Welsh/English for the last few generations, lived in England all my life) and as such generally answer English or British if I have to (like on the census) although I don't really like saying (for no particular reason). I do often get mistaken for being largely Welsh as opposed to English, due to my voice, and although I have no idea how my bizarre voice layered over my speech impediments sounds Welsh, but everyone seems to think so. Honestly, I don't care much.

I was told for the longest time by my teachers and such that I had to be of German ancestry.

In sixth grade I did a geneology project and learned that I did not have a drop of German blood in me. It doesn't stop people from assuming, though.

Hoppin'.

I ask questions like this because I'm into genealogy and the like. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this reason.

Some people are sensitive to race. Some biracial people wish to be identified strongly with one side over the other.

I remember in another thread asking a white troper with a black boyfriend quite sincerely what would she want their children to be called. She answered "happy accidents". While I understand her humor and appreciate that she would leave labels aside, when I'm filling out a form for a patient at the hospital, most of the biracial children elect for whatever side is most advantageous for getting them in. But I worry about what kind of message that sends to the kids.

I had one mother (Hispanic) and father (African American) insist I mark both squares. Some have elected the "Other" mark with the title "Biracial non-Hispanic" if they were White and Black combinations.

Yeah, I remember when my mom was younger she said they forced her to mark one box though she insisted on marking multiple.

No one generally questions what I am...but, I remember a weird incident where my ex-wife was asked about her racial background (she was Irish-German). Apparently the people asking were neo-Nazis, and thought that because she had olive skin, wavy hair and various other facial features she was mixed race. And that my dating her was potentially "problematic".

Long story short there was very nearly a fight. First time I ever came close to getting arrested.

This question can be asked legitimately, but its something you should save for people you know well. Simply asking strangers about their racial background seems a little too personal to me, for reasons that have already been listed.

As a Brit, I find that no one questions my race when I'm in my own country, but beyond my borders, it does happen. Not due to my appearance though (typical Caucasian) but rather my accent. Working out which part of the UK a given British person is from is often a challenge, it seems.

My accent is slightly strange. I was born in Scotland, after 6 months moved to England for 6 years, and then moved back to Scotland where I've stayed. But for the next 13 years I was on the Scottish-English border (Dumfries, in the SW of Scotland) before coming up to Glasgow where I've stayed for the last 6 years and counting.

My accent is thus a hybrid Lowland/Central Scotland accent, reflecting Dumfries and Glasgow respectively (in dialect terms, I use mannerisms of both). Interestingly, anyone from one of those places can generally detect the other in the accent, and I may well be asked if I'm from the SW when I'm in Glasgow and vice versa. I also have a very strong natural English accent, which I could use as naturally as my Scottish one if I so chose. My English accent, incidentally, is a Midlands accent. Anyone who knows the story of Ivan Hoe may be familiar with Ashby-de-la-Zouch - the story was set there, I spent 3 years there, and my accent is typical of the area. It's also the accent that I read with, presumably because I learnt to read while I was in Ashby.

Abroad, I'm likely to be mistaken for Irish, something which would never happen here. It's actually pretty accurate to call me English, given my upbringing and the fact that my entire immediate family is English, and I have no Irish blood at all that I know of. I must have a strange sort of inflection in that way.

edited 4th Feb '12 11:59:35 AM by CaissasDeathAngel

I came into this thread thinking it would be about the question in general, not about race specifically.

I thought

Batman!

... as in "are you dense? Are you retarded?"?

Anyway, race and culture can be terribly unimportant to some people, I guess. Which could be a reason for someone to get tired of the question.

I have a story sort of related to this. My cousin is black and Filipino, lives in Canada, and had a baby with a white guy. The baby looked Ambiguously Brown when she was young (now she looks sort of black). I remember we were in the mall and these people kept coming up to her and asking about the baby. I'm pretty sure it was cause the baby was brown and they wanted to know what race she and her baby were. It was weird.

"Advantageous"? I thought you got rid of that shit a long time ago?

Anyway, the way I see it, a "post-racial" world is not going to happen any time soon. We have hard-wired tribal instincts to judge people based on appearance, and race is a part of that. So yes, someone's race will probably colour your first impression of that person - their social station, intelligence, personality, even their desirability as a possible romantic partner. Their sex, clothes, facial features, voice, etc. will all have a similar effect.

It's perfectly normal and human to have these impulses. The trick is to recognise and suppress them, not to pretend they don't exist.

edited 5th Feb '12 2:47:05 PM by MidnightRambler

Pfft. What world do you live in, and how do I sign up?

It's called "Europe". Application forms are available at your local airport.

But seriously, I don't really get this. When you want to be admitted to an American hospital, you're supposed to fill in a form including your race, and the hospital has some kind of policy to admit so-and-so many patients of race X and so-and-so many of race Y? Is that the idea?

I'm pretty sure the race part is just for statistics. Hospitals can get sued for doing what you said.

She was talking about money.

When organizations in the US are giving out money, there's often a set amount of money set aside for specific minorities. Otherwise, white people would get all the money.

The race question on hospital admission forms are primarily about statistics — and for good reason. Race can play a role in certain diseases (especially genetic disorders). By tracking the race of a patient along with their diagnosis, researchers can get a better handle on such maters, and hopefully come up with better treatments.

@Rambler: While it's not a quota system per se, but they do get funding set aside specifically for helping people of certain races. She explained a bit more over here.

Whew, that's less nasty than I thought. You had me worried there, Polarstern.

Also:

I don't know whether to find this amusing or disturbing, but I've noticed a tendency for Americans to say 'you can get sued for that' rather than 'you can't do that' when talking about unacceptable conduct. The article for George Jetson Job Security, for example, mentions 'wrongful termination or hostile workplace lawsuits' rather than laws and regulations on firing people.

Listening to you, I'd almost (note the almost) think the USA are like The Roman Republic, where no crime ever got punished unless some private citizen sued the perpetrator...

edited 6th Feb '12 1:03:18 AM by MidnightRambler

Well, technically you can do it, you'll just get hit with negative consequences.

Threadhop: Black Elephant, do you object to being asked because of how the question is asked, or just because you don't think it's anybody's business/should matter?

Curiosity should always be tempered by caution, anyway.

I work in a mental health hospital, a combination of outpatient and institutionalized facilities. They're right, it's affirmative action. I have a certain quota of different ethnic and racial patients I'm allowed to maintain based on the current census data of my specific area.

For example, if there are say 3000 African Americans living in my district, then we do some sort of formula that estimates the probability of what percent of that specific demographic will need treatment. This formula is applied to every demographic my hospital recognized (aka each box you check)equally. So let's say that of that 3000, we predict that say 50 will need to be committed to in house, long term care and 100 will need outpatient treatment in the adult ward. We do separate numbers and formulas for children. That way we can try to have as equal opportunity to our services as possible.

The only thing I don't like about it is, even if we don't have people qualified to fill or finish a certain quota, I am not allowed to give the unused funds to take in other patients. Once it's full, it's full. If it's not full, that money stays in trust and cannot be touched. While I understand the need to prevent corruption, I really hate turning down a patient just because they weren't able to get in.

That's why biracial children have an advantage. If say, all my African American allotments are taken, I'll slip them in with whatever ethnicity their other parent is. It's not fraud, and if I get audited I'm not in trouble, but for some reason it still feels off.

I think it's mostly how the question is asked, and the fact that too often, it has been the very first question that is asked (yes, even before my name). And possibly the reaction to it. When it's the first question asked, it comes off like the person is only asking because they're going to use the answer to gauge how they should treat me.

That's entirely reasonable. You only ask that of someone if you know them very well.

See, I was thinking about this: I'm white, and I've only ever been asked the thread title question once. I genuinely couldn't answer in any kind of specifics - I just listed English, Scottish, Irish and probably some French and/or Welsh.