A Rough Guide to The Inevitable Casual Personality Profiling Through Place of Origin

Clinking glasses and beer spilling from pitchers. A CFL game on the ubiquitous big screens covering every wall of the sports bar, masquerading as an old english pub. Friday night beers with the crowd from work in a bar filled with other members of the downtown after-work crowd.

"So where are you from, buddy?"
Geez, here goes again. Uncomfortable looks around the table are exchanged.
"I'm from mars," he answers tiredly. Person who asked question in first place looks mildly insulted by the answer.

Jamaican: easygoing, but lazy.
Or perhaps he's African?: Sexist, politically radical. Grew up dirt-poor.

Not that ethnicity isn't important. I hate to take the perspective that ethnicity is completely unimportant, that our ethnicity doesn't affect who we are or how we see the world. How and where and by whom we are raised are important in forming who we are, but not all of who we are. Where you are from is often the smallest part of the equation, but the most loaded question to answer.

A quick look around the table revealed a motley crew of stereotypes to be had:

Greek: hot-headed, don't anger him or argue when he espouses an opinion. loyal to family.
German: outwardly artistic, inner fascist.
Whitebread, standard Anglo-WASP Canadian female: easy to get in the sack, good chances here.

Are we so pressed for conversation that we must resort to a quick judgement of personalty based on a cursory glance at one another? A quick sizing up by birthplace, ethnicity or accent (not to mention gender, height, clothing)?

Large-city Eastcoaster(New York, Toronto): pushy, overly businesslike.
Raised in small town westcoast: drinks Kokanee, likes to smoke pot and fish.
Grew up in Surrey: get him drunk and he's likely to shitkick you.

Lest I sound like a crusader of political correctness, or idealistic, easily offended proponent of identity politics, let me stop there. I just think we need to take a step back before we judge, or even ask.

And for those of noble birth, but no particular origin, other than whitey-white.
Canadian Euro-Mutt: easy to push around, nice, but a little boring.

"I'm not from Mars," he eventually said after the conversation had progressed through a few different drunken topics.

"I'm from Zimbabwe."