<p>My kids never use racial identity terms when describing their friends. I usually discover the diversity of their acquaintances by sheer accident when (a) I meet them, or (b) see pictures of them at parties or whatnot. My kids tell me there’s no reason to use racial terms in identifying people and that it is something only people my age do.</p>
<p>I think there are two kinds of situations being discussed here. In the course of regular conversation, I wouldn’t expect anyone to tell me the race of someone if it doesn’t have any bearing on the story. But when trying to describe a person for identification purposes, there’s no reason, in my mind, not to bring up race. It’s just another identifier to me, like the guy with the glasses, or the girl in the striped shirt.</p>
<p>There was a funny story involving an Asian Indian friend. He had been the victim of an armed robbery, and was describing his assailant to the police officer. The police officer, who was black, asked him if the assailant was white or black. My friend, uneasy about appearing ‘racist’, replied “It was a black gentleman”. </p>
<p>On a similar note, I once had to describe an intruder at my workplace to a police officer. He asked me what the race of the intruder was. Can you believe it, I honestly wasn’t able to recall.</p>
<p>Edit: In my post above, you’ll notice I gratuitously specified that my friend was Asian Indian. I think the story just reinforces the ethnic stereotype of Asian Indians as being overly polite. I guess it is a slippery slope and it is not the main topic of this thread, but I personally think ethnic stereotyping for humor isn’t all bad. Plenty of jewish mothers enjoy jewish mother jokes.</p>
<p>Race is funny, my kids were sort of colourblind- not that they did not notice so much as they did not care and that was an unimportant characteristic. Thinking about it, my kids have dated white, black, Asian, and Mexican people and they really don’t think about who is what. I can recall taking friends on vacation with us, stopping at grandparents and they were surprised we never mentioned the friend was a different race.</p>
<p>My brother’s wife is a different race than me, but I have known her since I was a child and she dated my bro when I was in grade school, they married when I was in HS, I am closer to her than my bro and when I refer to her it would be as my sister. As in, “my sister is stopping by” and boy have I had some confused co-workers. :D</p>
<p>So, we are sort of colour blind in that we don’t think a lot about race when we know the person as a person, but not in that we all tease each other about racial stereotypes- the asian one cannot drive, etc. Race is pertinent in a description, but if I told some one to look for my DD, I might have to tell them to look for a race other than she actually is!</p>
<p>My kids all have the same parents, but look like different races, that is interesting. Same with my niece, she is two races mixed and the result is that she looks like a 3rd race and gets hassled by people in that race for not being enough into her supposed culture!</p>
<p>It is weird that we, as a culture, are so odd about race.</p>
<p>Could someone tell me what the correct term is for a person from the country of India, or whose family is that nationality? I used to say “Indian”, but that seemed to get confused with American Indian, and that became Native American, but I still get people who think American Indian, and pretty soon I feel like I’m explaining geography just to describe another person. I have used the term East Indian, but is it really Asian Indian? Or is this another reason to drop the labels, too much confusion.</p>
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<p>A friend of mine whose father is a Pakistani expat uses “Desi” to describe those with heritage from India, Pakistan, and any other areas of similar ethnicity (possibly Bengladeshi or Nepalese? Not sure…). She claims that it is a common term of self-description among people of that ethnicity, particularly relatively young people, and I’ve picked it up from her, but others might not know what it meant. I have also heard “South Asian”, which is pretty clear IMO.</p>
<p>I, too, would like there to be more open talk about race. It’s so hard to know what to say so as to not offend. Apparently some folks are trying so hard not to step on toes, toes are getting stepped on! I recently made the mistake of referring to someone as “Oriental” – meaning from the Orient. I was corrected in no uncertain terms that “Rugs are Oriental, people are Asian.” I sure felt dumb and embarrassed. I had no idea that Oriental was an outmoded, offensive term.</p>
<p>A new girl joined my son’s 2nd grade classroom. I asked him to describe her. He said, “She has long, shiny black hair, black eyes, and skin like dark chocolate. She’s not from America, she’s from Indiana.”</p>
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That’s really cute and a beautiful description. Sounds like your son has a crush! ;)</p>
<p>In 1st grade my D2 came home from school talking about one boy in her class who had one black and one white parent and that his skin was lighter than her sister; then DD asked me who is the black parent and who is the white one, me or Dad. The answer was neither, but it was just too cute showing how kids think, our ethnic brownness was unevenly distributed amongst our kids ;)</p>
<p>“My kids never use racial identity terms when describing their friends.”</p>
<p>There isn’t normally any reason to use a racial ID when simply talking about friends. Eg., “Sarah and I are going to the mall” – no need to say, “Sarah, who is [black, white Hispanic, etc.] and I are going to the mall.”</p>
<p>It is reasonable to mention race if you’re pointing someone out, “Sarah, who’s the Asian girl in the pink dress over there, is the girl from school whom I was telling you about.”</p>
<p>This discussion is very interesting. We tend to be careful not to upset anyone, and so we are careful to not bring up race or ethnicity.</p>
<p>I was working with a young man last spring and met him and his dad - I asked his heritage, because he had such an unusual name. It wasn’t about racism, it was curiosity.</p>
<p>I was taken aback when he said “dot, not feather.”</p>
<p>I had no idea what he meant. I was rather embarassed for a few moments…then when I got it, I laughed. He was Indian, and proud of it. He reassured me that people want to know, but are often uncomfortable about asking. His family emigrated to this country years ago and were proud to be Indian, and American.</p>
<p>Could be, corranged, she is cute! Her family just moved here from India.</p>
<p>Well, unless there’s more than one girl in a pink dress, why would you even do that? Why not just say, “Sarah is the girl in the pink dress over there?” My eldest D never even used the word black or african when telling me about her college friend from Tanzania. She just said she’d made friends with a very nice girl from Tanzania who she’d met in her dorm.</p>
<p>Sorry, reply to no. 30.</p>
<p>I just don’t think any of this stuff is as impt to our kids as it is to our generation. It’s like who’s gay and who’s not. They don’t seem to care about it, at least my kids don’t. Seems like a good thing to me. This same D, the one with the friend from Tanzania, was telling me about the mayor of the town where she went to ug. He came to speak at the college, and he is black. It was a bitter cold day and he opened his talk with a comment on the weather, “Man, it’s so cold out there I feel like I’m going to turn into a fudgsicle.” The students roared. They loved it. It’s a sign of progress to me, and in a very unlikely place, too, I might add.</p>
<p>“Well, unless there’s more than one girl in a pink dress, why would you even do that? Why not just say, “Sarah is the girl in the pink dress over there?” My eldest D never even used the word black or african when telling me about her college friend from Tanzania. She just said she’d made friends with a very nice girl from Tanzania who she’d met in her dorm.”</p>
<p>Why not say, “The black girl in the pink dress” just like one might say, “The blonde in the pink dress” or “The redhead in the pink dress?” I don’t see the problem with mentioning race. If a person’s race is different from that of most of the other people around them, it would make them stand out. I would not be offended if someone pointed me out as, “The black woman in the pink dress.”</p>
<p>““Sarah is the girl in the pink dress over there?” My eldest D never even used the word black or african when telling me about her college friend from Tanzania. She just said she’d made friends with a very nice girl from Tanzania who she’d met in her dorm.”</p>
<p>I’d be interested in knowing the race of the girl because I think that the perspective of a black, white or Asian person from Tanzania probably would be very different when one considers the country’s history.</p>
<p>For instance, among H’s German friends are two who are of African descent. That’s an interesting fact about his friends, and their race also has shaped many of H’s experiences with them (such as the time that H – who is black and speaks fluent German – were in a bar in Germany and some Germans started speaking in German, saying racist things about H and his friend.). As H tells the story, faces got red around the bar when H and his friend started conversing loudly in German dialect.</p>
<p>What a great story, Northstarmom, about the German bar. That’s the kind of thing I’d love to be able to do, if I’d been in your H’s shoes. I am ornery that way. </p>
<p>As for my D’s friend, she is black. But she wasn’t raised in Tanzania as her parents came to the US when she was little. Her parents are now divorced and her mom lives in Tanzania, but her dad and siblings are all here. We got to meet some of the family at graduation in May.</p>
<p>And you’re right that it should be no big deal to use race to describe someone you’re trying to pick out of a crowd, but I honestly don’t see my kids doing it unless it’s absolutely necessary, and I chalk it up to their being more oblivious to the issue in general. I also think that a lot of white people my age get flustered by it and don’t quite know how to handle that situation. I find myself feeling awkward sometimes when telling a waitress what my H looks like if I’m trying to find him. For some reason saying he’s balding and wears glasses seems awkward to me. He’s sensitive about the balding and I feel awkward even when he has no idea I’m doing it.</p>
<p>My D was fortunate to meet and make friends with kids from lots of different countries as a result of the kinds of schools she attended. While none of the kids were raised overseas, the parents were all adults when they came to the US, so there was a lot of the culture present in the homes. One of the families from Pakistan, the mom was 12 during the war with India and in charge of protecting younger children from bombs, I think, while she was at boarding school. It was a harrowing tale that her D made into an essay that won a local Knights of Columbus Freedom Essay contest. None of us knew about it til they published the essay in the newspaper.</p>
<p>S, 20, usually does not mention his friends’ race, and seems offended if I ask. However, there were some notable times in which he did mention race.</p>
<p>Freshman year in h.s.: “I met some cool twins. They were born in Africa, and moved here from Thailand. And they are white!”</p>
<p>He also has a virtually equal # of male and female friends, many of whom are from international backgrounds and have names that I can’t identify their genders from. One time that S mentioned his friend’s gender: “I met this cool kid who is really tall and plays the harp. And he’s a guy!”</p>
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<p>What’s funnier is when I use the term black to describe or point someone out I’m not consciously using the term to refer to a race of people. Merely a descriptor to identify. My wife has 2 co-workers named Tracy. I can’t ever tell who she is talking about so I refer to them as white Tracy or black Tracy. Nothing meant by any of it other than to distinguish 2 people. I’m sure if someone overheard a conversation and heard me ask her “Was that black Tracy?” they would jump to all sorts of conclusions about me.</p>
<p>My daughter is at a predominantly white college and has several very close female friends. I had met most of them and could point them out in pictures. One day she was showing me some of her pictures and I ask which girl was “Jill” as I had never met her. Turns out “Jill” is black and my daughter never thought to mention that. Not that it was unusual as she had black friends in high school, but I was just surprised due to the schools makeup.</p>
<p>Several years ago we had a new family move in across the street. It was weeks before we actually talked to them. When introducing themselves, the husband (who I knew was black,) said “I am Joe Smith, I am French.” I guess he didn’t want to be mistaken as an African American? Both my husband and I were taken aback and really didn’t know what to say. We just told them our names and left it at that.</p>
<p>"the husband (who I knew was black,) said “I am Joe Smith, I am French.” I guess he didn’t want to be mistaken as an African American? "</p>
<p>I’m guessing he is a typical proud Frenchman who doesn’t want to be mistaken for being from anyplace else in the world, including former French colonies. Unlike the U.S., France doesn’t maintain racial information on its citizens.</p>
<p>Northstarmom-I did not know that about France; now I feel bad that I thought he was prejudice against African American. Maybe he was, but most likely he wasn’t.</p>