“What’s your origin?” – Why is a Black woman like me asking me such a question?”

At work, I met an apprentice like me, a Black like me, a girl like me. Being in the same situation as me, I thought it would be nice to be a friend. And then she's the only youngster on my floor so...

During the break, while eating, we discussed, got to know each other. And there she asked me a question “Where are you from?” When I told him I was from Guadeloupe, I let you imagine her surprise, her look that said “Ah I would have thought of anything but that.” Then she explained to me that I looked like a Congolese... probable, but not true. This little conversation led me to the following thought...

In the place where I work, there is everything, mostly white people, but you can meet any type of people.

But after thinking it through, I realized that no one asked me where I was from. Whether executives, assistants, the guy in the mail, etc... Nobody. And when it came time to meet a Black woman like me, the fateful question came up.

So I hesitate, I wonder why Black people between them need so much to know where the person in front is from. I naturally understand curiosity, but why precisely this great curiosity?

Is it the fact of wanting absolutely to look for a piece of his community? See if his ethnicity, country, region, continent, color is present?

And then, according to the whites, all Blacks are Africans, so we don't need to know each other's origins (ironically beware!).