Question!

(not the System Of A Down song, it's an actual question)

I was watching television yesterday with one of my sisters when she pointed out "the Chinese guy in the back".

I told her she shouldn't generalize like that- he could be Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Malaysian, Indonesian and so on for all we could tell. Wouldn't you, I said, be offended (or at least annoyed) is somebody called you Puerto Rican or something like that without thinking? (I would...)

She responded saying she wouldn't, because whatever nationality we are and whatever we look like, we are all on the same level: "It's not like I think that anybody from Puerto Rico is beneath me".

That may be true, but I still don't think that's a reason to designate people the first nationality that pops into your head when you see them.

So my question is: Who (if anyone) is right? What do you think about this?

Also, I just thought I'd mention this, I knew somebody who would go to unnecessary lengths to avoid mentioning somebody's race. Like, if there was somebody they wanted to point out, for example the only black woman in a crowd of people, instead of saying "the black woman" they'd say "the short woman in the red shirt, brown coat and black pants that's standing next to the tall man with glasses, drinking a beer" and I remember distinctly on one occasion they added "and... er, I won't say the other thing..." like it was a bad thing or something.

I mean, you can't help the color of your skin or, say, the shape of your eyes any more than you can help having big ears. And while it is not widely considered in the best of taste to refer to (address, point out...) someone by their race when you can do it by something else, I do think it's rude to avoid mentioning it at all costs, like it's some horrible disease that you generally don't want to think about.

My head hurts now :(