During the question and answer period where the audience was incoming freshman students of color who are planning on doing pre-med, a young woman asked me "what race are you?"
I truly thought that she wanted to see if I was one of these white people who think they're not white because I was speaking pretty strongly against white supremacy, etc.
I began to answer by repeating that race is a socially constructed category and not a legitimate biological notion, but that social constructions are nevertheless real, and that I am white, etc.
I could see from her reaction that she was not satisfied with this, and there were several other students who were also shaking their heads, but I truly was still not sure what was going on, so I started to say something about how even the social categories are different historically and across countries, and then another kid said, "I think what they want to know is are you Jewish?"
I am laughing even now as I type this because I don't know whether I should have known or not but it was truly the furthest thing from my mind.
Then the teacher whose class it is, says "Don't be offended, it's just that they've never heard a white person speak like this before and they're trying to figure out how you came to your beliefs."
I was sharing this story in a study group with a group of teachers, and what do you think the first thing one of them said after I told the story?
"Are you?"