Asking someone where they’re from is a “microaggression,” asserts CNN’s Tanzina Vega in an article entitled, “Where are you ‘really’ from? Try another question.“
Lamenting that questions about a person’s race or ethnicity are still “fair game” in modern America, Vega describes such inquiries as “exhausting,” alleging that she is often asked about her racial and ethnic background.
“Being asked, ‘Where are you really from?’ is always about so much more than the question, which is itself a microaggression,” writes Vega.
Pushing neo-Marxist social theory, Vega pulls Merriam Webster’s definition of “microaggression”: “unconsciously or unintentionally express a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.”
Vega, as it were, views herself as part of a “marginalized group” in today’s America.
Vega asserts the existence of “black-white racial binary in the United States,” claiming that questions about racial or ethnic background are “tiresome and predictable” for people who are not white or black.
Most people asking about her racial and ethnic background, asserts Vega, have simple-minded and nefarious motivations:
The truth is, most people don’t want to know the history of my name. They want to know what box they should put me into.
Vega quotes a Columbia professor to push her neo-Marxist racial and ethnic agitation:
The impact to the person receiving that persistent questioning is that you are not a true American, you are a perpetual foreigner in your own country. [The people asking those questions] are not in contact with their unconscious world view that only true Americans look a certain way: blond hair, blue eyes.
America is a dangerous place for “nonwhite” people, claims Vega:
There’s a fine line between asking someone where they are from out of curiosity and asking them out of suspicion or fear, especially now in a cultural and political environment where simply being nonwhite can lead to assault, harassment or even death.
Vega cites the Southern Poverty Law Center as a legitimate resource for information about “hate crimes and bias incidents.”
Vega exposits on the trials and tribulations of being asked about her race and ethnicity as a “nonwhite” person falling outside what she says is a “black-white racial binary in the United States”:
These findings resonate with how exhausted I feel. Sometimes, I don’t want to talk about my race or whether I speak Spanish. Sometimes I don’t want to feel like a group representative. Sometimes I don’t want to have the “I have Latino friends, too” conversation. Sometimes I just want to make small talk and leave without feeling like an object on display. …
Most of us would consider it rude to ask a stranger how much money they make, what religion they follow or who they voted for. Asking about race or ethnicity is a personal question that could be reserved for more intimate conversations — a real, not a surface, way to get to know each other. Right now, many people in our country are struggling to find ways to have difficult conversations about race, conversations that need to happen so we can move forward. In the meantime, let’s check our intentions and give people some breathing room.
Vega writes about “race and inequality” for CNNMoney.
CNN presents itself as a politically objective and non-partisan news media outlet, billing itself as “The Most Trusted Name In News.”
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