That dreaded question
As a mixed Afro-Caribbean/white Londoner I’m no stranger to The Conversation and I’ve been meaning to write about it myself. I’ve had a couple of variations of it recently and each encounter lingers irritatingly in my mind.
Some of the commenters on the Guardian piece seem to be missing the point, perhaps intentionally. “Where are you from?” is a perfectly valid question in the inane small-talk that fills the void of initial acquaintance, right up there with “What’s your name?” and “Where do you work?”
The point is not the question, it’s the response to the answer.
It’s the “Where are you really from?” as if you’re lying, the confused look in response to “I was born here”, the “You don’t look like you’re from London” on the highly odd assumption that Londoners “look like” anything when the city has been a hub of diversity for centuries.
It’s the tone that differentiates The Conversation from straightforward sociableness and curiosity, the stilted probing until the questioner gets a satisfactory answer, which illicits an a-ha, that’s why then.
It reveals something about the person’s preconceptions, I think, which country they decide I must be from. I’ve had everything from Morocco to India to Brazil to Egypt, to Ethiopia, which I thought the strangest of the many uninvited guesses. I suppose hearing I was born and raised in an outer London borough must be a bit of a let-down.
As much as I want to, I’ve never even been to Barbados, where my mother was born, although I’m working on it.
Unfortunately, The Conversation has happened so many times, I bristle even when people are genuinely asking the question. Clearly I can’t do anything about attitudes, but what I can do is take it less seriously.
