(no subject)

[benlehman]

I get unaccountably annoyed when people use the phrase "..., who just happens to be [race], ..."

I realize that this is just a dialectical feature of coastal white American English, which is meant to convey "race isn't important to me, but I feel a need to note it anyway." It's a set phrase, and I shouldn't try to parse it for grammatical meaning, like another sentence. But I do, and thus it annoys me.

Does anyone "just happen" to be their race? Did it "just happen" to them? Like they were walking around, happily white just like everyone else, and they tripped and fell in a puddle of Chinese?

Seriously? That happens?

Because most of the people I know get their race from their biological parents, anything but accidentally.

Comments

[funwithrage.livejournal.com]

I think you can also use it about yourself: I've said, occasionally, that I just happen to be a chick, and blah blah blah. By which I mean that yeah, I have girl plumbing and all that, but I don't consider it a vast important part of who I am and I'm not going to go off on The Womonly Expherience or whatever. Being female informs my perspective on this issue, whatever it is, but I'm not part of the Ovarian Sisterhood.