After Donald Trump told journalists on Wednesday that his presidential opponent Kamala Harris āturned Blackā for political gain, Trumpās comments have impacted the way many multirace voters are thinking about the two candidates.
āShe was only promoting Indian heritage,ā the former president said during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week. āI didnāt know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.ā
āIs she Indian or is she Black?ā he asked.
Sheās both.
Harris, whose mother was Indian and her father is Jamaican, would make history if she is elected president. She would be both the first female president and the first Asian American president.
Multiracial American voters say they have heard similar derogatory remarks about their identities their whole lives. Some identify with Harrisā politics more than others but, overall, they told NBC News that Trumpās comments will not go unnoticed.
So, from your answer the question āAre you from around here?ā would be fine or would it sound to close to āwhere are you from?ā ? Iāve had similar thoughts about ancestry as to @FlyingSquid, but donāt ask. Usually best not to ask if there is a high chance of offending someone.
Honestly donāt like terms like āblack-Americansā, "asian-Americans or āmexican-Americansā. I rarely here āwhite-Americansā, they are just Americans. Feels like a way to segregate verbally.
I think āAre you from around here?ā has a totally different vibe. It presupposes they might be and that youāll take that as an answer rather than going āno, but where are you really from?ā
again speaking only for myself, both āwhere are you fromā and āare you from around hereā are similar in that theyāre not ābadā in and of themselves, unless youāre looking for an answer that those questions arenāt asking for. the thing thatās irksome is not people wanting to know āwhat kind of asianā i am, but saying āwhere are you fromā with the assumption that the answer will be some asian country (āobviously youāre not americanā is the implication). just say āwhatās your familyās backgroundā or something similar.
also pro tip, itās not the case for me, but some people get mad when someone assumes āwhat kind of asianā they are. my dad, whoās full japanese, hates it when people just assume heās chinese or korean or anything else. iām glad i didnāt inherit whatever thatās all about
I think I know how your dad feels. Growing up in West Coast US I didnāt understand why central Americans had such animosity towards being compared or mistaken as Mexican. Then I moved to the south. To my co workers every brown person was Mexican. āhey go ask your little amigo xy or zā was common. āwhat little amigo?ā " The Mexican whoās got the keys to the gate" āI donāt know that guy. Also, heās Guatemalan. See that flag hanging from his car? Itās a Guatemalan flagā I didnāt piss me off, but it made me feel a way I havenāt felt before and itās not positive. I now get triggered when people just assume Iām Mexican. It says a lot about them and itās not good.
for myself, if someoneās going to lump an entire ethnic background into one nationality, then i can already assume theyāre racist and thatās all i need to know. but i never really felt like itās an āinsultā to be mistaken for chinese or korean or whateverāthose people are people too, and weāre all seeing the same racism
Yep, I completely agree. Itās not so much an insult because you think less of the people youāre being mistaken for. Itās an insult that someone would be so ignorant? Racist? That to them color was the only distinguishing characteristic. I found it offensive when they would call the Guatemalans Mexican or literally any brown person. Iām Mexican btw. When I pointed it out it was always dismissed too.