If the applicant was white, should the manager have asked them; "Oh wow as a half Italian/half English person , how was to grow up in the suburbs of New Jersey, was it difficult? Was it hard? Gee I cannot begin to imagine how strong you are"
Well, I'm not American - and like many other cultures that aren't exactly black but just aren't WASP, my people weren't even considered white by Americans.
But I see no problem with "otherizing" you seem to fear so much. Is it an American pre-occupation, that every ethnic person is necessarily just a good-old American, with no distinction or unique experience coming out of an all-american melting pot?
And if you acknolwedge that an Italian American or an Native American, or an Asian American, etc could have different experiences growing up in the US because of their ethnicity/heritage you're "otherizing" and that's bad?
What the duck is wrong with a culture so afraid of discussing these things (except in adversarial tones: X are evil, Y have privilege, mentioning Z is otherizing, asking K is patronizing, and so on)?
>If the applicant was white, should the manager have asked them; "Oh wow as a half Italian/half English person , how was to grow up in the suburbs of New Jersey, was it difficult? Was it hard? Gee I cannot begin to imagine how strong you are"
Depends of if whites had it bad statistically, or perhaps whites from some specific area. I'd sure ask whites from Alaska say how it was growing up there, or italians from the Bronx in the 30s, etc...
Really? Consider it this way, by substituting x for something that fits for you personally:
What was it like growing up x? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you."
How might you feel by the end of the flight?
I don't see absolutely any problem with that. In fact it's something we talk about frequently in casual discussions.
Sure beats BS casual talk that means nothing. It also gives you the opportunity to give the other person an idea about x (e.g. my ethnicity).
Perhaps it's about different ways societies see casual talk?
While "diversity via token hires", and "faux-diversity celebrations with folklore food, music, etc" are fake-ass and crinzy, I don't see the manager's question as gross.
It's a legitimate question a human being can make to another. We're not just individual snowflakes, we're also people with certain traits and members of certain cultures with certain histories.
It makes sense for someone to ask us about those aspects of our life.
Of course, perhaps the way he did it was patronizing or fake, or whatever.
But really, it's a question one might legitimately ask another they met at a bar or an airplane, or some such...