Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

I regularly ask people what their ethnicity is.  Maybe not as a first question (though sometimes) but often as a 3rd or 4th.

No introductory chit chat is anyone's "business."

If the point of introductory chit chat is to establish rapport, the deft conversationalist would steer clear of potentially offensive questions.

[HVC]

Or couch it better. Where is your family from. So you're not calling them personally foreign.

I have a weird name and I tan, so I get asked were I'm from all the time. Doesn't bother me. But that doesn't mean it doesn't bother everyone. Ask once, clarify and move if they're still being obtuse.

That's usually the annoying follow-up after you've gone through the sequence of establishing your bona fides (first where are you from? where do you come from? where are you originally from). Wtf does it matter where my family is from? We just met.

It's just a common ice breaker. What the hell else are you going to ask someone you just met, their opinion on Descartes philosophical views? . If someone wants to be offended they will be. This old lady (unnecessarily) drilled her because she was being willfully obtuse, she knew what the old lady was asking her. That's all well and good, it's her right if she doesn't want to answer. I just don't personally agree it a rude question in contrast to your link.

[Grey Fox]

I don't expect my older family members to have come to fully grasps what it means to be a country of immigration.

[garbon]

It's just a common ice breaker. What the hell else are you going to ask someone you just met, their opinion on Descartes philosophical views? . If someone wants to be offended they will be. This old lady (unnecessarily) drilled her because she was being willfully obtuse, she knew what the old lady was asking her. That's all well and good, it's her right if she doesn't want to answer. I just don't personally agree it a rude question in contrast to your link.

Oh, I didn't realize your stance was born out of inability to think up other topics beyond asking someone their race.

I found this for you.

https://www.brightful.me/blog/questions-to-ask-someone-you-just-met/

https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/consider-these-business-questions-in-your-first-conversation-to-really-get-to-know-someone.html

[The Brain]

You don't want to really get to know someone you just met.

[HVC]

It's just a common ice breaker. What the hell else are you going to ask someone you just met, their opinion on Descartes philosophical views? . If someone wants to be offended they will be. This old lady (unnecessarily) drilled her because she was being willfully obtuse, she knew what the old lady was asking her. That's all well and good, it's her right if she doesn't want to answer. I just don't personally agree it a rude question in contrast to your link.

Oh, I didn't realize your stance was born out of inability to think up other topics beyond asking someone their race.

I found this for you.

https://www.brightful.me/blog/questions-to-ask-someone-you-just-met/

https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/consider-these-business-questions-in-your-first-conversation-to-really-get-to-know-someone.html

I rarely ask because I don't care, but I get asked. That being said I respect your right to be offended by what you choose to be offended by, I'll just think you're thin skinned and move on with my day

[The Brain]

I can imagine that garbon gets asked which part of the Subcontinent he is from on a regular basis. I can see that getting pretty old.

[Admiral Yi]

What Hillary said.  People can choose to be offended by absolutely anything.

[garbon]

I rarely ask because I don't care, but I get asked. That being said I respect your right to be offended by what you choose to be offended by, I'll just think you're thin skinned and move on with my day

It is a tiresome question and doesn't suggest the asker actually wants to learn something about me.

That said if that question set goes on too long, I eventually point out that I don't know a lot about my background as the records aren't so good once my family tree reaches back to slavery.

[HVC]

I rarely ask because I don't care, but I get asked. That being said I respect your right to be offended by what you choose to be offended by, I'll just think you're thin skinned and move on with my day

It is a tiresome question and doesn't suggest the asker actually wants to learn something about me.

That said if that question set goes on too long, I eventually point out that I don't know a lot about my background as the records aren't so good once my family tree reaches back to slavery.

You should lead with that, just to make them feel awkward

My standard reply is "I was born in Canada, but my parents are from Portugal". Sometimes they ask follow ups, sometimes they don't. I'd say greater then 50% of my meetings with new people includes this question. More if it's under certain situations. Like nearly all Uber drivers who want to talk ask me. Thinking about it now, I get asked more by other minorities then I do white people

[Admiral Yi]

Black Americans are the one group I don't ask about country of origin, not because I think the question is offensive, but because it's a duh like you said Grab On.  It would be like asking someone with a thick Scottish accent who lives in Scotland where his family is from.

My Black American variant on the question is where did you move from.  Best answer I ever got was from a black coworker in DC who told me Crackerlina.

[The Brain]

I can't remember asking someone where they're from like this. If I make smalltalk with someone I've never met before it's typically something about our immediate surroundings or the event we're at. I avoid personal questions, mostly because I'm not very interested, but also to avoid any sensitive stuff.

[Barrister]

So okay, here's a different context:

When I put a witness up on the witness stand, the first handful of questions are about themselves.  None of them really matter of course - the idea is just to get them comfortable answering questions in a very unfamiliar environment.

My usual questions are "what town or city do you live in", "how old are you" (excluding women over a certain age), "do you work or go to school".  And if someone has a pretty obvious accent I will ask them "are you a citizen" and "what country are you from".

Garbon - do you think that is an unfair question to ask?

The context is obviously very different from making small talk - the person is legally obligated to answer my questions after all.  And because I've spoken with the witness beforehand I know to avoid any sensitive questions (someone might not want their abuser to know what town/city they are living in for example).

But I think it helps the judge to get to know the witness as a person.  The fact someone is fairly recent to the country can help explain A LOT about why a person is acting in a certain way.  I just ran a two-day trial where both my complainant and Accused had immigrated from India, and we went over both "where are you from" and "what is your immigration status".  But then again it would have been painfully obvious - the context of one of the offences was they had just watched via Zoom a wedding that had taken place in India.

But maybe "did you immigrate here" is different than "where are your parents from"?  If someone was born and raised here that's as far as I go, no matter what their skin tone.


(total aside - I'm low-key friends with another hockey dad - our kids have been on the same team multiple times, I've driven his kid a couple times.  Dad and family is black, zero accent.  There are so few blacks in Edmonton, and most of those are immigrants from Africa, I am curious what his story is, but I'd never dare to ask unless it came up somehow)

[Josquius]

What gets me about this story is that this woman via her connection with the Queen will be no stranger to meeting diverse Brits.

I completely get this kind of "where is your family from?" as a question of interest. But just out of the blue asking it and pushing it so much when it's clear the other person isn't comfortable with it... It's more what you expect of a old lady living out in the country who has not met more than a handful of non white people in her life.

Really makes me wonder if she is going deaf and/or senile.

[Iormlund]

FFS I wonder how many generations it will take for "visible minorities" to be accepted as British. I remember reading once how in Denmark even third-generation immigrants are just "immigrants"

The Roma and the Jews have been in Europe for so long nobody quite knows when they first arrived yet they were never accepted.

Nobody will ask a Roma where he's from, though. Unless they are interested in the neighborhood they come from, I guess.