• Posted on:August 13th, 2008
• Comments:3 Comments
• Category:My Every Day

Someone please explain to me why it is that people — and by this I mean White People, mostly — feel the inexplicable urge to ask personal questions to people they don’t know, those people being mostly of the Not White variety.

Take yesterday at the grocery store, for example. I’m rolling my way through the produce section, picking out vegetables for that night’s Pasta Primavera. Nothing crazy, mind you. Just some beans, asparagus, onion, etc. On my way over to the garlic a strange man practically yells across the bananas, “Are you from BURMA?”

Startled, I whipped my head around, met the dude’s eyes and flatly said, “No.” But what I really wanted to say, had he not totally caught me off guard is, Why the hell do you think it’s any of your business where I’m from? Do I have a sign on my back that says, ASK ME WHERE I’M FROM, BECAUSE IT’S SOME FUCKING EXOTIC PLACE OUTSIDE OF THE U.P.?

Why do you assume, simply because I’m not white, that I’m not from around here? Because if I told you where I’m from — which is Detroit, by the way –that isn’t really the answer that you’re looking for. Because you want to me to confirm what you’re guessing, be that China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, or as you so asininely put it, BURMA. You’re hoping that I’m from the same little town where you served during the [FILL IN THE BLANK] War, or you’ve got some fetish about Asian chicks who grocery shop. Whatever your reason may be, pay attention: I. DON’T. CARE. Stop thinking that you can ask personal questions to people you don’t know, just because for some reason you think us minorities are just dying to satisfy your curiosity.

Of course, I’m used to people like you asking me this question, and while I’ve mostly tolerated it by not responding with a Fuck You, it’s getting pretty old. Maybe it’s from years of being taunted by other kids as they stretched their eyes out into slits with their fingers, singing ching chang chong or whatever stupid thing they heard on TV. Maybe it’s from all of the times people have asked me if I know karate. You have no idea how badly I wanted to learn, just so that I could kick the ass of the next person who asked me that very question. Maybe it’s because all this time I haven’t needed people like you to remind me that I’m different, but you still feel like you have an obligation to publicly point these things out, be it by yelling to me from a moving vehicle that “I should go back to China where I came from,” (which isn’t where I’m from, but you wouldn’t know that, you ignorant douchebag).

Sorry, perhaps I’m being overly sensitive. I haven’t eaten today, after all. Speaking of food, you’d better lock your cats and dogs up at night, because you know us Oriental people eat that shit UP.