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.
"What is a subtle sign that someone is really intelligent?"
The minds of really smart individuals never stop working.
Resourcefulness
"They draw wisdom from multiple sources. Wait but that might be more wise than intelligent... But I guess those two tend to be seen together a lot."
– Puzzlehead-Engineer
Inquisitive Minds
"They are curious about everything."
"To be intelligent you need to be knowledgeable and you cant be knowledgeable if you are never curious."
– soup54461
The way highly intelligent people interact with others is slightly different.
Social Adaptability
"They can switch up the way they talk to match the person they're talking to without sounding condescending. They listen to how others learn and explain it in that person's language of understanding."
– Wynonna99
Talking On Level Ground
"Talking to people as if they're intelligent at their level and without being condescending or even letting on that it's lower than their level."
"I used to work with a doctor - Tom Howard - and the day I realized he was a genius was the time he guessed every single condition a patient of mine had based on minute pieces of information about him."
– Yoodei_Mon
The Humble Professor
"No joke. The smartest professor I had in engineering school was also the most humble. She was an astounding human being. By week 2, she knew everyone's names by heart in the intro engineering course. In College. With like 180 students. Later, in upper division classes, people would occasionally ask some really stupid questions."
"Like, it happens... you get so deep into some fluid mechanics derivation or something you forget something really basic. People would ask a question like this and everyone would be thinking like; 'Wow, how did you even make it this far?' but then... it's like she would spot the flaw in their understanding so perfectly, and then respond with such clarity and wisdom that the person asking the question would look less stupid and the whole class would be enlightened."
"And here's the thing... I pride myself on being really good at that exact skill. I tutored a lot of people. I was easily one of the brightest amongst my peers. But that woman was on another level. It was mind-blowing."
"And it wasn't just her intelligence, but her organizational skills, discipline, consistency.... And yet... she was so humble. She was quiet and physically quite small. But she just exuded competence and immediately commanded every room she walked into. I've never seen anything quite like it."
– EngineeringNeverEnds
A Positive Effect
"When they explain something they make you feel intelligent."
– gwoshmi
When In Doubt
"They know when their knowledge ends and say something to the extent of 'I don't know and anything else i say on this topic is ignorant speculation.'"
–blutoboy
Some with impressive IQs may deal with questions in the following ways.
Reaction To Delayed Responses
"'You really think about everything don't you?' - a doctor, to me, after he asked me a question and I took longer than 2 seconds to answer it."
"No, I just pull something out of my ass every time and those extra seconds you waited for me to answer were purely to irritate you for my own enjoyment."
– Imakegoatnoises
The Really Good Questions
"They can ask really good questions."
"Edit: to anyone not understanding what mean, I’m talking about people who ask 'really good questions,' not just any questions, really good ones. I don’t know how one would achieve this skill(I know I haven’t)."
– milkmanbran
Taking Pause
"They spend time thinking before asking a question."
– ParkMan73
"Some of the smartest people don’t comment at all."
– metric-poet
I agree with many of the comments saying a really intelligent person knows how to cater the conversation towards another person's level of understanding.
They do have the impressive skill to convey something in a way that can easily be understood. Some of the most venerated professors at my university were like this, and their classes were always the hardest to get in to.
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I'm on the fence about high school. I want to hate it, but nostalgia haunts me. I saw a lot of violence, there is that.
We were on CNN.
don lemon nodding GIF by Red Table TalkGiphy"They started charging us for ketchup in the cafeteria. Most of the school boycotted cafeteria lunch and brought all manner of condiments from home. We were on CNN. They eventually caved." ~ Ash3Monti
No one liked him.
"I was big into drama club and musical theatre when I was in high school. There was a girl in the drama club in her freshmen or sophomore year who was super nice and everyone loved her. Her older brother on the the other hand, was a complete and total douchebag. No one liked him."
"He always made inappropriate comments or jokes and no one liked to be around him. One night, he was driving him and his sister back from school when he took a steep curve going around 100 mph. He lost control and hit a telephone pole. His sister died instantly and he was in a coma for a few weeks but ultimately survived."
"Myself and my friends in the drama club were devastated. She was one of the sweetest girls you'll ever met and we all loved her. A year or two later, the brother messages my sister and tries to use his sister's death as leverage to get laid. F**k you, you piece of crap." ~ FearTheKeflex
Bribes
"Guidance counselor was taking bribes to change grades (Both money and sexual favors). Invited one male student over to his house. Had the student tie him up and hang him by chains in his basement "dungeon." Student was homophobic and while the counselor was tied up, bludgeoned him to death." ~ monthos
H2O Issues...
"This is not that extreme, but it's still disgusting. We have drinking water taps instead of fountains. One parent was suspicious of whether they were cleaning the tanks or not. So they made an announcement that the tank was being cleaned every single day."
"A lot of us didn't believe it, so a group of boys decided to see for themselves if it was true or not. So they put a dead frog in the tank when there was no one around. I don't even know where they found the frog but they swear they didn't kill it. Anyway the frog was there for a few weeks. And obviously the water started tasting weird."
"After the teachers got multiple complaints, they opened the tank and found the frog. The boys were punished, but they fired back with the fact that they lied about cleaning the tanks. They were still punished, because they proved it in a disgusting way. They could've put literally anything in the tank, but they chose a dead frog." ~ R00mTemperature
The Quad
Acds2 Look Away GIF by Anime Crimes DivisionGiphy"A worker doing stuff on the roof. He fell off. Landed in the 'quad' at lunch. A large piece of machinery fell and squished his head. Like a cartoon, only funny. Like 150 Kids saw this." ~ LordInventus
Threats
"The Latin kings gang threatened my cousin and his friends and they had 10 squad cars guarding the whole school and dismissed us the same day early." ~ Terrykrinkle
“it’s gonna blow”
"I had just moved in from Egypt to the states in my senior year of high school. A teacher thought it would be funny to fold a bunch of papers and wrap them in duck tape to make it look like a bomb and threw it my direction and went under his desk saying 'it’s gonna blow.' Everybody started laughing and I was so clueless then I just laughed along. It infuriates me to this day that I didn’t call him out on it or report him." ~ ezzabousaif
Go Fish
"Someone somehow made a bomb threat on a Swedish fish candy. Like one single piece. I don’t know how it happened but he got arrested." ~ ts_13_
Masternid
"A couple weeks before graduation, this kid hacked into the school system and put a Hitler quote and a Boston bomber reference in the senior quotes for the yearbook. One of the affected parties was a trans girl, and we're still not sure if it was a targeted act because of that."
"Administration didn't find out until the entire senior class had received their books. Some people turned theirs in to get their pages replaced, but some kept it because it was a 'limited edition item' or some stupid sh*t like that. Kid got arrested and charged with cybercrime, since he hacked everyone in our school system's school passwords."
"He was so close to graduating too, but got expelled like two weeks before he could. Looked like a rat too. It was all over the news, and everyone in the state of CT basically knows about this now. Got out on bail for $5000." ~ kocorpsie
Season 3 What GIF by On My Block"Apparently one student brought drugs to school and was selling it to her friends. A completely unrelated student caught on and stole the drugs while everyone else was in class. She was caught snorting the drugs in the bathroom by the group selling the drugs and got the crap beat out of her."
"We also had a recently graduated student murder his parents for insurance money . He hid the bodies in a chicken coop and told everybody they were on vacation. It wasn't until 7 months later the bodies were found by the landlord because the rent was late." ~ randomgenericcow
Enjoy high school, at least try too. Maybe if more kids do that, it wouldn't be so insane.
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