I would not ask them that. I did have a classmate who sat beside me for an entire Semester of a Sociology/Anthropology Class on "Minorities in American Society" at the University of Nevada, Reno. He was a prince from the west coast of Africa from a prominent group whose ancestors probably sold slaves captured to the Europeans for goods and stuff. He hated African-Americans with a passion thinking they were all the stock of slaves his ancestors and others had captured in battle or in some other way. One of the most racist people I have met in my life. He was very dark in complexion-- an African whose ancestors had been there for a long time. He was quite an education.