mertlej

Make yourself a sparkly umbrella and go as Buffy on prom night with her class protector award.

Along the lines of BGM’s comments – I’ve had people call me out on my race before, or make assumptions about me based on my race (I’m white), and it can run the gamut from completely innocuous to threatening. It all depends on the circumstance and the tone.
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Example: I live in Chicago, and when my husband and I first moved here, we lived in Hyde Park (south side). We cluelessly went wandering around trying to find a library, and went pretty far south, which was in a not so great neighborhood. A black woman came up to us, said something along the lines of “um, are you guys lost? you clearly aren’t from around here”, and then walked us to the library and told us to hurry home. Super nice, very friendly, and we went about our day without getting all worked up about our new neighborhood.
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Counter example: some guy getting up in my face and yelling at me that I was a “white cracker bitch” as I walked past him. Not fun, not friendly, very threatening.
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totally different. and even if the first question was based on race (and not based on the fact that we were wandering around looking lost), so what? I don’t get how that is anything to be nervous about.