are you?"
A rude question, asked -- a lot -- of people like Tiger Woods, whose racial or ethnic identity is ambiguous, not clear-cut enough at face value, or by pigmentation.
When he isn't wearing a green jacket, Tiger sports a coat of many colors.It's like people need to know where you stand ... on yourself. But mostly where you stand in relation to them. People ask not for clarity but for their own comfort. Get close enough to Tiger to ask, "What are you?" and he'll likely ignore you. He's good at that. But his answer could be, "Everything."