whiteaboutism
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Seems relevant.
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There also needs to be a good replacement for “Where are you from?”, which also signifies potential racial bias.
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I guess that depends on the situation. That’s a question that can be interpreted in multiple ways*. Is the goal to find out where they are now, or where they’ve been? For me, that’s usually the former so I offer that about myself before asking, “How about you?”
With people I don’t know, my ice breaker questions tend to focus on likes and dislikes more than location or background. For example, I might ask which they enjoy more - city or countryside, mountain or beach, desert or rainforest, etc… 
*Having been on the receiving end of that question, my responses over the years ranged from the state where I grew up to Earth (frat party), and Nova Scotia (on vacations during the GW Bush years). 
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Damn, I hate to hear it…
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Thanks for that. It’s really good general advice.
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It’s probably a more risible question when put to Asian Americans. It can imply, for one thing, that they’re not “real” Americans, no matter how many generations back their familial immigration actually happened.
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This.
I’d say I’m aware of this because I had a few friends from Vietnam as I grew up.
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Yeah, I had never considered that point about the job question, but it makes sense! TIL!
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This is good. The examples make it real.
A few years ago a friend mentioned that she’d stopped asking, “what do you do?” because of just this reason. I’d never thought about it, but ever since then I switched to, “what have you been up to?” And if they seem confused I’ll add, “see anything cool lately?”
It’s weird to think about that generally when we ask, “what do you do?” we’re really asking, “what do you get paid to do?”
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Because a person’s job is the entirety of their identity /s
The “ice breaker” about jobs is just a way of asking someone how much money they make without actually asking about money. Because asking about money would be rude.
I do prefer “what do you with your time?” I’ll use it next time I must enagage in pleasantries I find unpleasant.
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Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s so true.
A few years ago a friend shifted careers to become a life coach/writing coach right when her husband joined a startup out in CA. She said it was excruciating making small talk at all the company events and, “what do you do,” was her least favorite question of all.
I used to try to actually tell people about my work, because it’s fulfilling and I’m a nerd about it, but now I just say, “I’m in energy efficiency.”
But I think next time someone asks I’m going to be even vaguer and say, “a little of this, a little of that.”
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I have to say it’s the kind of thing I would have said because everyone else does without even thinking about it because conversation is hard, but I’m currently on the other side of such conversations often and it’s always kind of awkward. Even with the best intentions it’s still a particularly empty question I can really only answer with cryptic defenses.
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This is really true, although avoiding rudeness tends to end with the first polite question. Mention you do something that doesn’t sound like work and the first follow up is almost always some version of “You make money doing that?”
As an example, I’m a writer. People make a lot of assumptions about that kind of work (anything creative, really).
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You could come up with some ridiculous answer like, “oh, for money I’m in investment banking, but my real passion is prostitution.” 
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Yeah. That followup completely defeats the fig leaf of the first question! Sheesh. I’d be more interested in what you are writing than how much or whether there is money in it
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More people used to ask about what I write than they seem to now. I live in a pretty rural area these days, so there’s more questions about money.
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