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Comment by eulgro | Hacker News Reader

> And people get (justifiably) offended when asked "where are you from?"

Why is it justifiable? Is curiosity an offense?

Because it implies non-belonging. The question self means that the conclusion is already made that the asked person is not "from here".

That is pretty messed up. There can be gazillion good reasons for somebody to stick out, or somebody else to just asking. People getting easily offended and taking such benign question very personally have usually some deeper underlying untackled issues in their lives.

> usually some deeper underlying untackled issues in their lives.

Usually being fed up with asked "where are you really from?" with the implication "go back there" lots and lots of times in their lives.

It never even occurred to me people might be offended by that. I love stories of different places and foods, and I'm fascinated by all the permutations of accents that occur. I'm simultaneously mildly angered by people being offended by such a thing, and that others trained them to be that way.

I get asked where I'm from all the time even though I'm very obviously from around. I get what you mean but differentiating curiosity from xenophonia is generally pretty easy, and as such I see no reason why we should avoid the question entirely. Intention and context counts, pretending that it is always an offense is absolutist and reductionist.

I think "offended" is a bit much in many occasions, but it's certainly a type of racial profiling. It simply doesn't happen in places where your class or group of friends or coworkers are not all white, because you know that not all people look the same. Whereas if you live in an area with a very homogenous looking population everyone who looks different probably is a tourist.

It's the assumption that they probably aren't "American" because they don't look like their ancestors came here on the Mayflower that many find offensive.

I think you’re right that people sometimes take it that way, but I’ve always thought it a rather uncharitable assumption. The answer could be a different place in the US. It doesn’t seem to imply anything about whether you’re American or not?

I’m in California and it’s somewhat unusual for someone to be native Californian.

Anything can be offensive if you try hard enough!

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