5 ms·
I lived in the midwest for over a decade and am married to a midwesterner. I'm also ethnically one of the 'model minorities' so to some people I'm white, while
by q845712 6y ago
I lived in the midwest for over a decade and am married to a midwesterner. I'm also ethnically one of the 'model minorities' so to some people I'm white, while to white supremacists I'm assuredly not.
Most people in most places are basically friendly. However.
Even just being recognize you as 'other' can get old, like being asked "where are you from" or riding the bus in Chicago and having to answer questions about my ethnicity from whoever was feeling tipsy enough to ask them.
Here's one story of folks being un-friendly: I was at a public event, basically a version of a county fair with my wife's family somewhere in the rural midwest. There's a stage with small-name bands performing, food vendors, and a small carnival-ride section. As the sun sets we lose track of her parents, and as we're looking for them I also got separated from my wife. I felt like the crowd was also slowly changing and like I was starting to attract attention in the form of unfriendly looks. I find my wife and try to express this, but her face clearly says it's all in my head and why am I talking about anything other than how we can find her parents. Just then a physically imposed man walks up, plants himself firmly in front of me, and asks in the least friendly way possible, "how's it going brother?" I answer him in unaccented neutral native-born american english (don't remember what i said, but likely something like "good how you doin"), and my wife is like, "ok you're right, we have to find my parents and leave."
So just to be clear - I can't know what might have been, but I strongly suspect that having grown up here and being a native speaker made that evening simpler. And again, I'm someone who many people look at and just process as "white" so I can easily take my experiences as a shallow sample from the tip of the iceberg.
And that kind of "unfriendly" experience is something that happens more often if i leave coastal metropolitan areas.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoJust curious... What ethnicity are you? On the west coast, outside of a couple cities, my experience has been the opposite - though I'm of a darker complexion. And I'm not too fond of rural attitudes on race anywhere - if the rural west coast is somehow different, I'd love to hear your contrasting anecdotes. I know on the east coast it's certainly not the case.
- jacobriis 6y ago"Even just being recognize you as 'other' can get old, like being asked "where are you from" or riding the bus in Chicago and having to answer questions about my ethnicity from whoever was feeling tipsy enough to ask them." Chicago, infamous MAGA country. Where the city buses are ruled by white supremacists harassing all innocent people who look different from them! In a city that is only 31.7% non-Hispanic white, they have a lot of work to do!
- zdragnar 6y agoI'm white, live in the midwest, and get asked all the time where I'm from. It's a form of small talk around here, where everyone knows everyone, or you might have grown up near someone they knew. Not too different from talking about the weather (though we do that more often, as well).
- crocodiletears 6y agoThis has been exactly my experience. 'Where are you from, where were you raised?' are the first questions after 'where do you work, what do you do for a living?'
- specialist 6y agoAs you well know, it's more the how than the what.
- HelloFellowDevs 6y agoThere's the small talk version of that, but then there's the following question of "where are you really from?" if you give them a less exotic answer than they were expecting. Edit: wording
- asdff 6y agoSurely you've experienced personally or seen firsthand the following microagression on a regular basis living in the midwest as I have, in a city that reliably votes 85% democrat no less: "Where are you from?" "Cleveland Heights." "No, but like, where are you from?" implying that this brown individual must surely have wound up from some far flung corner of the world, and that they couldn't have possibly been a native born person.
- zdragnar 6y agoI actually have been asked what country I am from. I don't have a heavy accent (there are far heavier than mine further out in the boonies) but apparently enough of one. What of it? If you have some characteristic that is unusual (within a group such as local community) people will notice and be curious. That is basic human nature, not lack of friendliness or malice.