Thread by @BaldingsWorld

So even though I would generally rather unnfurl a Free Tibet Flag in Tianenman Square than discuss race because most any discusion on Twitter is just absurd BS, I am going to go against my better judgement and tell a recent story from my kids school 1/n

As they started growing up in China and very multicultural environment whether it was being literally the only white kid in every school or class, or playing with kids from all over the world in different settings my wife and I made a very conscious decision to NOT use 2/n

Many common descriptiive words to describe their friends specifically anything have to do with nationality. Most commonly that meant not describing friends as Chinese or Korean for instance and just calling them their tall friend or almost Seinfeldian like desciptors 3/n

The logic we had was we did not want them associating any bad experience or friendship with many of the common descriptors people use. They could have nice friends or one that wasn't nice but we quickly adopted the practice of not using those types of descriptors 4/n

This was NOT done to demonstrate how racially or ethnically sensitive we are or to pursue wokeness just so that they would say this specific person was nice or mean and the words they used reflected why that person was nice or mean and didn't link to generalized descriptor 5/n

We adopted this practice and honestly forgot about it because it became so natural. You described people based upon specific characteristics. Recently we had a chance to visit my middle daughters class and she had always told us about this group of three other girls 6/n

She was close with at school. Upon visiting the class and seeing her friends,we realized one of her friends was first generation Chinese immgirant, an African american girl, and a biracial white Asian girl. We had never asked her about this and she never told us 7/n

If there is one thing I learned from more than a decade in Asia it is that you cannot CANNOT judge people by whatever general characteristics they have that are not in anyway unique to them. We use those descriptions to convey information but really the convey very little 8/n

Useful information that helps us understand someone personally. I knew CCP members that wanted to invade Taiwan and CCP members that though the whole thing was Bull$hit. What we are trying to convey is information about ourselves or understand but really those things 9/n

Very little useful information. I guarantee you kids just want to play on the playground together. As adults what do you really know about someone? Even if you are the same race or socio-economic class what do you really know about someone? I remember a known respected 10/n

Tell me once, don't ask what people do. Ask where someone is from. Asking what someone does for a living does not convey significant information. Asking where they are from and what experiences shaped them, drive them, convey enormous information. That matters more