I’ve been asked this question for as long as I can remember: What are you? Before I understood its implications, I learned to answer it: My father is from Egypt; my mother of French-Canadian and Irish descent was raised in Indiana. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized most people aren’t asked that particular question when they first meet someone. The fact that I don’t fit into any of the neat racial and cultural categories is apparently written all over my face.
As an adult I’ve been asked how I identify racially, and after years of thought I’ve settled on replying off white, which usually gets a chuckle. It is funny. And it also feels like the truest answer. I’m grateful to have found it. Off white contains the reality that my mother was white and my father wasn’t; my mother had white privilege and my father did not.
I’m still not sure what all the implications are for my mixed heritage, but I believe it gave me a worldview that seems to be shared by other people who live between cultures in some way or another. I’m grateful for the ways it forced me, starting from a young age, to see things from different viewpoints. Perspective taking continues to be welcome challenge and joy in my life.
As an adult I’ve been asked how I identify racially, and after years of thought I’ve settled on replying off white, which usually gets a chuckle. It is funny. And it also feels like the truest answer. I’m grateful to have found it. Off white contains the reality that my mother was white and my father wasn’t; my mother had white privilege and my father did not.
I’m still not sure what all the implications are for my mixed heritage, but I believe it gave me a worldview that seems to be shared by other people who live between cultures in some way or another. I’m grateful for the ways it forced me, starting from a young age, to see things from different viewpoints. Perspective taking continues to be welcome challenge and joy in my life.
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