In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
1. Interviewer for a job: So how to you pronounce your name?
Me: Shee-yu Joo. [It's Shiu Ju].
Interviewer: Uhhh, okay. I'm just gonna call you Jane. Is that okay?
Me: I'm just gonna show myself out.
Anonymous
2. Can you pass the skin color crayon always meant the peach one. "Natural looking" bandaids, until recently, only came in a beige / peach tone. The term "nude" for nude bras still always refers to the ones that resemble white peoples' skin color. People describing people in stories as "a man" or "a woman" to refer to white people but then putting a race in front of everyone else, because the default is to assume white until told otherwise. There are a thousand of these tiny things, and sure they're so slight that any one of them wouldn't bother me on its own, but added up day after day, it can really make you internalize the racism and start to see yourself as lesser than.
-Anonymous
3. How they always assume I like fried chicken and watermelon. I do like those things, but still....
4. I once had a friend try to set me up with "the perfect guy" for me that she had met at work (this was before I was out, even to myself), and when I asked her why he was so "perfect" for me, she said "he's the first black guy at my office."
That was it. Full stop. He'd been there for one day, she had no idea if he was a nice guy or not. He was black, I am black. So, you know...
5. Being followed shopping in stores;
When people tell me they "don't see color" or say "you're the whitest black person I know" as if it's a compliment, or there's some way I'm acting that defines the color of my skin.
Then there was the time in high school that I went to the gym after b-ball practice to get water and a cop detained me in cuffs because the silent alarm was going off and he thought I broke into the gym and put on an organized wrestling match between my school and another.
I was the only one detained - all the white students and coaches weren't. An hour later, I was uncuffed and told to "stay out of trouble" by that cop instead of apologized to. Not so subtle, but nobody else seemed to notice or care.
6. My ex is black and he said that people would say to him "I don't even see you as black" or "I don't see color" which pissed him off because (Continued)
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what the hell is wrong with being seen as black. I noticed a very clear difference in the way he was treated by the police, I was honestly so shocked! I live in Australia and I thought that was just an American thing. Obviously not.
7. My Black friend in college was always annoyed with how they try to make everything ethnically diverse.
They were making a photo of happy students for one of the very small schools at my university that had no Black people in it, so they asked him to join. He argued that he didn't belong to that school, so they offered him coupons to the cafeteria. That whole discussion was so awkward and uncomfortable, I almost wanted the coupons to be from the local KFC.
8. When the substitute teacher needed to leave for a moment during math class and put me in charge to 'continue the lesson'. I am the only Asian in class. I am horrible at math.
Anonymous
9. The so-called 'positive' stereotypes suck... I mean, aside from being just stupid, I personally don't conform to any of them. So there's a lot of "whoa, I'm a better dancer than you! haha, I'm more Black than you are!"
Like, I hate that phrase... "I'm blacker than you..." cause I've heard it so much... No... you're not. Unless you are Black, you can't be blacker than me.
10. It's becoming more well known, but well, it's still something that a lot of white people don't understand. Hair. Black hair. People can be so rude and inappropriate about it.
Like, random stranger in the post office yesterday -- not kidding, this happened yesterday -- smiled at me in a friendly way and said "Is that your hair?"
Motherducker, it's on my head... it's mine. Whether it's extensions or it grew out of my head is none of your business. And yes, I get that people are curious, but... you wouldn't do that about anything else. A woman you don't know with really long eyelashes, would you randomly ask her if she had eyelash extensions? Of course not. that would be rude and inappropriate.
I also constantly get asked how (or even if) I wash my hair... again, many times by strangers. Again, highly inappropriate.
Oh, and the touching. Like, I'm not a cat.
And just so you know, I don't get angry like this in person, I tend to just smile and answer, but this is the internet so I'm being honest. It pisses me off. I honestly don't mind when good friends ask, but strangers? And one time a professor, in front of the class... called me out and asked me if my hair was real.
11. Guy in my civics class: What are you?
Me: I'm American.
Guy: No but like, where are your parents from?
Me: My mom's from Long Island and my Dad grew up in Iowa.
Guy: No but like, what's your ethnicity?
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Me: Judging by the dictionary, which defines ethnicity as "belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition," I'd say American. Probably also New Yorker, but that's getting into microdetails.
Guy: You don't look American.
Me: By that do you mean I don't look like an Aboriginal person or that I don't look like you? Just because your family came over from rural Ireland and mine came from Nigeria doesn't make either one of us more or less American.
Guy: Ooooooooh. So you're Nigerian.
Me: I give up.
12. Random teenager commented that it's nice my baby is part Asian because he'll probably be good at math.
13. At my small liberal arts college, for each month, the dining room would have "special dinners." Normally they only occurred once a month, and they'd give out items that they normally did not prepare.
EVERY FEBRUARY... they'd have a black-history month meal. The items on the menu were:
- Fried Chicken
- Collard Greens
- Corn Bread
- Watermelon
- Kool-aid
14. Turning up at South African border control in their international airport with a Portuguese passport and being asked if I had arrived to sell fruit and veg.
15. One time my class was going on a rather expensive field trip. The teacher announced that we could fundraise to subsidize the cost, and to see her for forms. After class, she makes a beeline to me and puts a paper in my hand. "Here you go, Trey. If you need any more help don't be afraid to ask." I don't know if it was the color of my skin or the way I dressed or both, but I just turned to her and said, "Ms. Brown, my parents are some of the wealthiest people in this city, I'm sure someone else could use the help more than myself." The look on her face was priceless. The truth? I lied. I'm from an upper middle class family, not super wealthy but definitely well off enough to pay for my field trip. I just wanted to see her reaction, and call her on her assumptions.
Anonymous
16. When I joined student council and the president said I should be treasurer because I'm Jewish, so I "could save everyone a lot of money." I know it's not racism, but it was really a bizarre experience.
17. I don't think this counts as racism, mostly just people being ignorant about history. Being asked where my family is "really" from or what my family's homeland is.
Do people not understand what slavery is? We're given the ethnicity African American because we (Continued)
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because we have no way of knowing where the heck we're from. Our ethnic/racial classification is an entire continent because we have no true homeland. People that migrate from Africa aren't African Americans, they're Kenyan-Americans, Egytian-Americans, Tunisian-Americans and so on. I don't think people understand the frustration of just having to pick a random country and culture to follow when none of them are really yours.
18. Having employees/loss prevention officers follow you in stores. Especially the ones that dress and pose as regular customers, after about the age of fifteen I'd confront them. Sadly a few weeks later the same officer would be following me around again.
19. I always think it's interesting how our language subtly shapes our perceptions of color, and as a kid I was totally unaware of this ingrained fear. For example:
- Money earned through illegal methods or money on which tax is not paid is called black money, but legal money is called white money.
- Culture equates white with being good and pure, and black with being evil. Notice how heroes usually wear white, and villains wear black cloaks.
- Blackening is a word that means to damage or blot someones reputation or to make something black. Whitening means to make something white. Why does blackening also have a negative connotation
20. You're so articulate: as if I'm not expected to, based solely on my race, Women clutching purses as you walk past; Men holding women tighter to them as you pass
21. Being asked if you are legal at college admissions by the admission girls even though you are a citizen but just brown.
Anonymous
22. White people living in a foreign country: Expat
Non-White people living in a foreign country: Immigrant
23. I'm a Black woman, my husband is white. We have mixed-race kids. When he takes them out into public alone (Continued)
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When he takes them out into public alone people assume they're adopted. When I take them into public alone, people assume I'm their nanny.
Anonymous
24. Had a business meeting in an office on Wall Street. The concierge asked me if I was the new janitor.
"I'm here to meet with [president of company] you should have me in your schedule."
"I'm so sorry."
Anonymous
25. When I mention subtle racism like everything that's already been mentioned, and a white person tries to "explain" to me how I'm wrong or what it's actually like to be Brown.
Anonymous
26. Athletic scholarships. Many sports require complex facilities or lots of equipment, putting them out of reach of many urban leagues or school districts.
27. Anytime anyone brown or black commits a crime, their race is reported on the news. When it's a white person, it's just a "man" or "woman" who committed the crime. This is so small, but so significant. If you're only ever hearing about certain races (or religions for that matter) committing crimes, you're more likely to (Continue)
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If you're only ever hearing about certain races (or religions for that matter) committing crimes, you're more likely to associate those people with criminal activity. Especially if you are living in a mostly white community, this is super dangerous, because that's the only impression you form of other races.
-Anonymous
28. Being told by a woman at a bar that "even though I'm Asian" she could "definitely be into dating" me. I nope'd my way out of that one fast. The whole dating scene is really hard for Asian males.
-Anonymous
29. "I like you. You're not like the other Koreans."
-Anonymous
30. Ancestral national heritage.
Europeans and American descendants of Europeans readily have their ancestry acknowledged by country. South-East Asian and South American descendants or immigrants, less so. South Asians, native Americans, middle-westerners, and Africans (and their descendants/immigrants) are not afforded the same opportunity to regularly present or be known by a specific nationality.
I can't definitively say I've come face to face with the spirits. But I have had some unsettling feelings in the dark. Shadows are just shadows sometimes, but who can be sure.
I hear it...
Nbc Wings GIF by HULUGiphy"I was helping my dad clean my grandma's house after she passed and I went in and was trying to find a song in my phone and before I could I heard a cough plain as day come from down the hallway where her room was. She died of lung and throat cancer it was pretty crazy."
Running Past...
"When I was 5 I remember getting home from my grandpa's birthday party. For context my mom was pregnant with my brother at the time, so my parents had already bought his crib. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a women in a white dress and long black hair standing over my brother's crib. I managed to wake up my dad so he could take me to the bathroom. When I got back it was still there. It was only until morning when it disappeared. Every now and then I see a glance of what I assume is that thing running past the backyard."
The Cat
"My best friend and his wife had moved to a new apartment. I came over to visit a few times, and each time I'd see the motion of a cat in my peripheral vision. Not the image of a cat, but a sense of how a cat moves. Anyway, one day I finally cracked some joke about the ghost cat in the place and his wife was instantly saying "See! See! I told you we had a ghost cat!"
"excuse me"
"I worked graveyard shift in a dementia ward for 4 years and it was anything but quiet. I was working with a nurse one night when we both heard a resident say "excuse me." We looked around and no-one was there. I checked on the resident in question and she was fast asleep in her own room. Many of us also experienced someone whistling in the ward late at night and one nurse even managed to catch a video of it happening. It was unnerving to say the least."
Clueless
Skeleton GIFGiphy"I once saw someone short walk by me in my house. They walked into the laundry room which only has one way in. I walked into it behind them and they where gone. I thought it was my little brother but I went to his room and he was asleep. I still have no clue what that was."
- ImBolio
Now was everyone here positive they were sober? Just asking. Those are certainly spooky moments. I'd like some video footage please. Continue...
Reflections
ghost library GIFGiphy"I was up at 3am when I was maybe 7 or 8. I looked out the window and saw a woman in a white dress run across my yard. I could see through her. She was transparent like the reflections on the window."
"you alright?"
"So, my work place is haunted. I was having a really crap day, and as a cleaner, it's normal that me and my co worker will be the only ones left at night. So I was standing on the second floor, leaning on the banister for the stair case, when I heard this male voice say in my ear "you alright?" Clear as day. I turned around so fast and nobody was there and it scared the hell out of me."
- Rex-the-
Watching Me
"I remember as a young kid I usually use to sit in my bed and watch tv with my room door open while the adjacent guest bedroom next to mine would always have the door shut. I always remember seeing that door fully open and close by itself multiple times a day very slowly and gently. Never really bothered me much now that I think about it… but there were other creepier experiences I had in the same house that made me feel uncomfortable like I was being watched."
Betsy
"I went to the Betsy Ross House as a really little kid in the early 90s. Normal house but I was confused why the tour guide never talked about the woman on the chair crying at the edge of the bed in Betsy Ross's bedroom. So I asked about it. No one else saw the woman at the edge of the bed. I figured it was just a wax museum since there was a wax statue of a man in uniform rolling bullets in the basement."
"Years later, I was looking at haunted Philadelphia tours to go on with a friend and the Betsy Ross House was on it. I was like "woah! I was there!" and looked into it some more. Turns out there is a woman at the end of the bed crying and a uniformed man in the basement that people have reported seeing. There is no way that 8 year old me would have known about either of these things."
hello kitty...
hello kitty lol GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"I had this hello kitty Balloon In my bed room, it had a string and weight on it. So it was late, I had the lights on just Sitting on my bed. The Balloon turns, faces my door, slowly floats into my hallway and turns and floats into my sister's room. To this day I am scared of balloons."
They are among us and they like Hello Kitty. I'm probably rattling the paranormal cages and they'll come for me next, but I'm ready. I feel like this thread has prepared me.
Boo!
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