“But where are you really from? I only ask this question because I’m genuinely curious,” said an acquaintance of mine when quizzing a non-white woman who happened to share a dinner table with us at a social event. “I don’t understand why some people find such a question inappropriate,” she confided in me after dinner.
This conversation took place in a post-lockdown summer of 2020. But the memory of it popped back to my mind after an incident I observed just about a week ago.