“Are you Middle-Eastern? African? Indian? Indonesian?”

“I told you, I really don’t know”

I’ve never known, and I never will. My parents are both citizens of the United Kingdom, as am I, but besides that I am uncertain where my heritage lies because my mum was adopted and never found her birth-parents. As a result, this awkward conversation ensues frequently in my daily life. Human curiosity is innate, we always want to link people we meet to worldly characteristics we recognize. Why does the question of ethnicity always have a red asterisk next to the fill in box; why is it required for these strangers to link me to a society I have no connection to? Why don’t the awkward interrogations ever reference my favourite thing about winter, or regard inanimate objects that repulse me? The reality that I love wool socks, or cannot stand eyeliner of any colour nor kind, are more valuable traits than the desired label that holds no relation to me.
My generation is the future of the world. It is our responsibility to drop the need to know what percent African, Swedish or Puerto Rican you are, your friends are, or your peers are. We need to instead learn their likes, dislikes, favourite time of day, favourite way to eat fruit, hopes and dreams, fears, and worries, because those are the valuable things to know and treasure; these are the qualities we should share more of. We will never truly be an ‘equal rights’ planet if we are left unsatisfied with not knowing the origin of skin tone. I think we have the potential to make that change.

Never knowing the answer to the mystery of my heritage has never unsettled me. I think the people that affect us are the people with us right now, not our distant family that we’ve never met. Why do people so desperately need to know the origin of my skin colour, but fail to inquire what famous dead person I would bring to the hypothetical picnic? I should be judged by my knowledge, interests, and experiences, not by how many nationalities my family's bloodline has been dipped in.

The people we grow into are shaped by our interactions, experiences and environments in the present, not in ancestry. So in case you were wondering, I would bring Mary Queen of Scots to my picnic, the best time of day is 6 PM, I love cubed fruit, and am deathly afraid of birds. That should have a little red asterisk, because I’m the only important piece to my identification.