People of Color are Not Curiosities by:
Sarena Tien
CW: racism and non-consensual kiss I know that arguing with entitled white men on Facebook never ends well, but I don’t know if I’ve ever been angrier in my life. He’s mansplaining to multiple women of color, defending the right to ask us the “Where are you from?” micro-aggression. He says it isn’t a harmful question because white people are simply curious. He asks if the question has ever traumatized me. I see red. I’m transported back to a clear, sunny afternoon in France. I’m 22, a recent French major graduate, flushed with the excitement of working abroad for seven months. A white male friend and I, wanting to hang out somewhere, still unfamiliar with the town, walk into the first bar we see. It’s dimly lit, reeking of cigarette smoke, and not an establishment I’d typically frequent. The bartender’s a burly, half-balding man with yellow teeth and a long, unflattering saltand-pepper goatee that juts out from his chin like a small broom. He’s perfectly civil to my white male friend, shaking his hand and then chatting with him in amiable French. I start to unclench my hand from my derelict blue moped keychain from Rome. But then the bartender’s gaze falls on me. I tense, because as a woman of color who has experienced racial harassment in college, in grocery stores, in job interviews, I’ve seen that look a thousand times. He does not see me as a human being, but as an exotic accessory from another country. Sure enough, instead of holding out his hand, he insists that I exchange la bise with him. Although I understand perfectly well what a cheek kiss is, he’s not an acquaintance, much less a friend. I refuse his request by playing stupid, a task made easier by his belief that I don’t understand France’s language or culture. But he won’t leave my friend or me alone, stubbornly talking to us in half-broken English. And then he demands to know where I’m from. I reply truthfully, but “America” isn’t enough. He wants to know where I, my parents, and my grandparents were born. I’m a first-generation child, and proud of it, but for the first time in my life, I lie. My friend keeps trying to deflect the conversation. The bartender ignores the obvious hints. He calls me a yellow girl.
