It’s still rude to stop complete strangers and ask them about their ethnicity.
I have a friend who is half Indian (American). Once we were walking down the street some guy called out to ask her “What are you?” Or something along those lines.
She was polite enough to answer him. (I would probably have just ignored him and kept walking.)
Then he went off on the “You’re so exotic looking…” thing.
This isn’t a small town either. It’s downtown Boston.
It amazes me that anyone is asking this question of strangers at all.
Though I have had an unusual number of people ask me about my ethnicity. And I’m white.
I have had all these random people trying to chat it up with me about Ireland. Or, in some cases, Russia or Poland or whatever predominantly Caucasian country they think I’m from…
In those cases, though, it doesn’t have quite the same offensive tone since it seems more like a straight out pick up line and less like part of someone’s Orientalist fantasy.
