Racial Pickiness

Started by Corvus of the Black Night November 5th, 2010 4:56 PM
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  • 24 replies

Corvus of the Black Night

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Age 30
Non-binary
With the Birds
Seen January 9th, 2015
Posted January 9th, 2015
3,416 posts
14.3 Years
Would you consider yourself someone who prefers to refer to someone's race by their country (like German, Japanese or Puerto Rican) or their nationality (Caucasian, Asian or Hispanic, respectively)? Personally I refer to the country if I happen to know it. Some people get really offended if you group them with their worst enemies, like the Palestinians with the Israelis (which are both considered Middle Eastern by some) o.o'

To be honest though, I never refer to myself as American. American is really just a catch-all for a bunch of kind of people who live in the United States...

Melody

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Seen March 4th, 2018
Posted March 2nd, 2018
6,459 posts
18.6 Years
I group them together first by Race then Nationality if they're outside the area from which the race originated.

So all other races in America are <Race>-American. If I know their country of origin then it's <country of origin>-American (IE, Japanese-American, Canadian-American, English-American (For the very select few who do decide to quit swearing by that crown, despite the fact that the people run the show more so than the queen/king does. XD.)

Ho-Oh

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Seen June 5th, 2022
Posted April 23rd, 2022
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17.5 Years
...okay this thread has taught me things. XD;

I vary, it just depends what I think of first as in races, etc, though I probs refer to Asians the most. Actually, you know, I do grou-- okay I group people by their countries most of the time apparently. XD

Kura

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Posted August 24th, 2021
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18.7 Years
I'm someone who tends to refer to someone by their country rather than nationality ._. I don't like to group so many people in together.

._. For example, someone who's Jamaican is completely different than someone who's African.. ._. I also have quite a few "Oriental" friends, and I'd think it's just rude to group them in as "Asian" when Asian could refer to eastern Asia or western ._.
Also when it comes to Europe, someone who's French is very different culture-wise than someone who's German .__.

So yeah, that's my reason.
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King Gumball

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Posted April 8th, 2013
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12.8 Years
I only ever say Asian when they are the black hair brown eyes featured countries like Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China and Mongolia etc. If they are like Lebanese or Israeli or Indonesian for example then I group them in countries.

Sometimes I use European when I cannot tell if they are like Austrian or Hungarian or Finnish or Norwegian.
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Holy Roman Empire
Seen February 23rd, 2016
Posted February 23rd, 2016
2,551 posts
13.7 Years
I usually go by the country, except that I will more often than not say "Asian" to East Asians and almost always say "African" to sub-Saharan Africans.

By the way, I find this whole "Caucasian" thing weird. To me a Caucasian is someone from, for example, Georgia or Azerbaijan. But...

Lumina

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Age 27
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Seen May 18th, 2022
Posted December 18th, 2020
1,287 posts
12.6 Years
Race for everyone except Asians, as I can never tell which country they are from >.<
I refer to people by country. Except Asians, for the same reason.

Stellar

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Age 31
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Posted November 27th, 2022
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14.1 Years
I don't usually refer to a person's race unless I know them. I find it hard to pinpoint someone's nationality from afar and it can be offensive if I misjudge it. If I know the person, then I refer to them by country with the exception of Asians. There are multiple Asian countries and I don't want to offend anyone by making a generalization, i.e. anyone who looks Asian is Chinese or Japanese by default.

Honestly though, I try to avoid labels of any kind whenever possible.
Unless I'm with close friends, in which case we frequently take shots at each other's respective stereotypes. xD

Rich Boy Rob

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I'd go for by-country. Calling me European could mean I was anything from Welsh to Lichtenstein...ian.
Also, the term "British" is used to refer to people of the UK far too much (yes America, I'm looking at you). Why not just refer to us as English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish respectively. Britain is not a country.
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Country, just because it seems like the most polite thing to do. Continents are very broad.

Personally I don't see the fuss over it though, I don't mind being referred to as European, or British. Many people here will get annoyed if you refer to them as British, it's something that only American's ever seem to do. I don't make a point of essentially saying "I don't want to be grouped together with these people..." It seems redundant, when everyone is quite happy to be grouped with everyone else that lives on the same bit of dirt as them, but when it comes to foreign countries they get all nationalistic and protest against being grouped together. There are plenty of scummy people in England that I'd rather not be categorized with, but I don't have a choice there, and there are also plenty of lovely, friendly people in neighbouring countries. The way I see it, I'm just a human like everybody else, and a citizen of planet Earth.

Dawn

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14.7 Years
I group people by their countries of origin. Other ways just seem so tedious to me for some reason.

Then again, I generally can't tell someone's race by looking at them. Nor do I ever ask.
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Esper

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I'm trying to think of a situation when I would have the option and wouldn't choose the more specific term. If I saw someone at a distance and they had dark and straight hair, lighter skin, and other features that one might find in, say, China then I would have to call them Asian (though I'd probably say "that guy with the shoes" or something more specific if I was really in a situation like that) because that's about as specific as I could get.

If I knew someone's country of origin or nationality (which are often be the same thing) I would say "Chinese" or "Australian" or whatever. I don't really care to refer to someone's ethnicity when I don't have to though.

Aquacorde

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I try to use the most specific term I can. I refer to most Americans by their home state... Minnesotan, Wisconsinite, etc. Otherwise I generally will say... Japanese, German, Egyptian, etc.
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Age 34
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Seen June 1st, 2018
Posted January 20th, 2012
272 posts
12.7 Years
I tend to go by country...unless it is a place like Canada, The United States, Australia, etc. because so many people of different races live in places like that. So when I see a 'black person' in the United States, I don't say, "he's an ethiopian' or something, lol, he's a black guy, or a white guy, or a Chinese guy, etc. I dunno, this is hard. It's all in context.

I never say Caucasian, lol, I'll say white. But some races are different, for example, you can sometimes tell if someone is from England vs someone from Sweden, even though they are still Caucasian, lol.

It really all depends.


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BHwolfgang

kamikorosu

Age 28
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Virginia
Seen February 24th, 2014
Posted May 9th, 2013
3,905 posts
14.2 Years
I refer people to their country, because that's as narrow as I will go.

I once called somoene African and he was very offended. There are also some Hispanics that I know that are offended when they're called Mexican, vice versa. However, they don't expect me to get mad when they addressed me Chinese. I have nothing with being called that, but most of the student body in my school assumed that all Asians are Chinese.

My point of view is that all Asians have some sort of Chinese in them, but it's still nice to be called by our nationalities. There are many other Asian countries out there, and they need to know that. Maybe it's just me, but I find it easy to tell the differences between Asians, or perhaps it's an Asian thing.

Sydian

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Age 30
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Seen May 22nd, 2022
Posted November 29th, 2021
33,354 posts
15.2 Years
I just call African-American people black. Caucasians are white. Hispanics are Mexican. Whatever. You might think of this as blunt and rude, but no one really cares in my state. It's just how things are. lol The only offensive things here are racial slurs, really.
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