Lmao funny-slightly-not-funny story:

At church retreat one of my friends came back to our cabin and mentioned that she and the rest of the group were playing a game where they guessed each others' ethnicities. She then proceeded to list hers in percentages: Irish, English, Scandinavian, one indigenous great-grandparent. I thought "Hey! This will be funny!" and asked her to guess mine, thinking she would try to suss out my non-white heritage.

She immediately began running through different European nationalities instead. Irish, Portuguese, Scandinavian. She kept saying "Hmm, I know one of these" and I was a little confoozled because...............she's met my dad..............who is not easily identifiable as anything particular but also visibly nonwhite............and I was thinking "Surely she can't be thinking that by asking for her to guess my ethnicity, I really meant 'guess what European country my ancestors are from', right?"

I eventually prodded her into guessing my nonwhite heritage and she weakly suggested indigenous peoples before I laughed and told her I was half Chinese. She was........surprised?? Idk I knew I looked white but THAT white???? Ig if you're not familiar with Asian features it wouldn't be automatic but we were literally at that facility with a Chinese cultural group comprised of several hundred people, with some of whom I resembled. I was pretty surprised at how sheltered she seemed.

But then that got me thinking: The only people I've ever heard talk about their ancestry in percentages or those ancestry DNA tests or ask people what ethnicity they are...........are white people. They talk about how they're mostly German with a little bit of Irish and an indigenous grandparent here or there (and the way they talk about that is 😬) or mention being part Spanish or Greek like it's exotic and interesting. I don't hear Asian, African, South American, etc. ethnicities being listed there often, it's usually just European nationalities with a couple "exotic" mentions here or there.

And don't get me wrong, it's cool and fulfilling to know where you came from. Knowing your family history can be a very grounding thing that I want people to experience! But it feels less like they want to know where they came from, and more like they want to find a culture they feel like they're missing in their white Westernerness.

Knowing your distant roots might help you make sense of pieces of family history you already have, but it's not going to automatically give you a new status or something. You could choose to research and integrate yourself into your family's culture, but just saying "I'm like, 13% Swedish," isn't the cool addition to your personality you think it is. The culture they already have is interesting and special and important, they just don't think it is because they see being white as the default and all other races as unique cultures.

It was rather comical to think of being nonwhite participating in those guessing games. They'd just skip over you if you're visibly nonwhite, and hem and haw over your Norwegian or English vibes if you're not. There were a couple mixed Indian fellas in the original guessing group, and I could only imagine how they must have felt!

Anyway. Sheltered white people things.