Eh, I visited Europe and the first question everyone asked me:

"Where are you from?"

It was unanimous.

In the US, I usually hear "Where do you work?" or lesser: "What are your Hobbies?"

The US judges people on how much money they make, primarily. I've heard in Europe you are judged based on your position. In Japan, based on where you are on the ladder.

When I went to Mexico, I stuck out like a sore thumb. There was no hiding I was an outsider. In the US, you could not figure out if someone has lived next to you for 10 years based on their ability to speak english, let alone skin color.

I wouldn't confuse people with good intentions with racism. I think in the future, we will have something like this, but more income oriented.

I don’t think that “Where are you from?” has anything more in it than a conversation piece. Some people like traveling, you know, and share experiences. But I’m European myself, so dunno.

But the megaphones of anti-racism keep wielding the concept of race itself as a sword, they just think that since they are the good guys, nothing could possibly go wrong.

I don’t think there’s good physiognomics or bad physiognomics, is all. The whole thing is flawed. If you keep sitting on “race, race, race” all the time, no matter the intentions, instead of canning the whole concept as a harmful curiosity from the past which we don’t use anymore, you’re just going to promote it and get people to stay in the same freaking framework that enabled all sorts of crimes against humanity.

Americans are racist - all of them - in my opinion...

Their enthusiasm for tracing their own ethnicity 3-4-5 generations back will put German Nazis to shame... And US diversity craze is just Nuremberg laws in reverse.

Burning books, censorship and self-censorship, thought control, creation of new language, new human and new society. Questioning the verdicts of Supreme Court if it does not adhere to ideological agenda... This is well known in Asia and Europe from XX century...

Nine times out of ten, genealogical research often reveals that (distant) family of, or location of, origin are not what you thought they would be. It is both humbling and gratifying to find that connectedness with others-quite different in outcome than a racist eugenics exercise.

Do feel free to paint all Americans with the same ratty brush at your own peril.

I don't see how the desire to trace back your lineage and know your family tree automatically translates to being a racist.

For Americans, who, dwindling Native Americans population excepted, are all immigrants' descendants, curiosity about where their families actually come from is only natural.