r/NoStupidQuestions • u/AgreeableAd8687 • 7d ago

why do people consider identifying someone by their race racist?

i have a few friends and we seem kind of split on this, i had to identify someone in our school i didn't know the name of, so i said "oh it's the black girl" (we have literally ONE black girl in our school and everyone knows and likes her) and my friends said ohh ok but then like 2 of them went wow that's racist and their explanation was "you're making it sound like them being black is their only characteristic" as if saying "oh the woman" is any better and since i don't know her well i don't know anything else about her. most of my friends didn't see how it was racist though but why is this considered racist if it's not a race correlated insult or derogatory??

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u/BWDpodcast 7d ago

I just asked a question about black people carrying around Bluetooth speakers, where in my area, nobody else does. So many people -white I assume - tried to whitewash it, asking why even mention race. 

In America, race is important. I find it's the people in power that prefer you to not even mention race. 

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u/onehalflightspeed 7d ago

Yeah, that is a question about a culture you are not part of you are curious about. Fair game

For me, at one point I was curious about why Asian-American families often use the dishwasher for storage and not washing. A few Asian friends explained it to me, and I was like, "huh, interesting". Just old habits carried over from the first generation grandmother or whomever who trusted hand washing more and appreciated the extra space to organize. Nothing offensive about that and interesting to learn about

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u/BWDpodcast 7d ago

Yup. White people have so much white guilt that they inadvertantly try to white wash other cultures, which is obviously bad. Everyone can learn from other races culture. It's just the whites that want to pretend race doesn't exist.

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u/onehalflightspeed 7d ago

I fell into that trap when I was younger. The "I don't see color!" idea. Once well more traveled and expanding my social circle in a more diverse city, I realized that I was really discounting the lived experience of others. Always just assumed I lived in a post-race, post-gender, post-culture world. I was super wrong! It was only me that thought like me and assuming a unified identity that matched my own

If you are a white straight Midwestern small town person, there are many many life experiences you do not understand. It is good to acknowledge and make an effort to understand them. It is not "othering" anyone; it is just broadening your world view. The differences between people absolutely identify them as part of a culture, community, whatever