Let me guess, you're white and male? Me too, and for a long time I thought to myself "Gee, I can't believe people get offended at stuff like that." Then after a bit, I really put myself into other people's shoes. How would you feel if your credentials were constantly being second-guessed just because of how you looked, talked, or your gender?

The thing is, as white (or white-looking arab or jewish) dudes, we _never_ have to run into that. The closest I ever came was immigrating to a different country and constantly getting singled out over my accent — so much so that I changed it.