I always know what’s coming when strangers start wondering about my ethnicity …

I’ve got my mask pulled on tight at work, and in public spaces right now. I’m keeping my ears open, spying for the benefit of my own psyche. What are they saying? Who can I trust? I finally got a good night’s sleep, and felt my reserves and resolve snap back.

I’m afraid. But not really for me. People I know, the water was already hot, but now it’s getting ready to boil over. The traditional targets of oppression, the new ones we’ve added, they’ve been feeling the heat for their whole lives. There wasn’t even much of a reprieve for a lot of people during the Obama years. There were legal victories, and gains. But there was other stuff, too.

I’ve felt this before. Like, in times when I can feel things get divisive around me, along lines of race, nobody gets my ethnicity right, except in one kind of case. I’m white. I’m jewish. I’m arabic. I’m latino. I’m maybe chinese? I’m whatever. More people get it wrong, because, more people suddenly start asking, and wondering, and making assumptions. The only time they get it right is when someone wants to use it to put me down. I’ve been through this before. People ask when the cultural waters reach a certain temperature.

I got to class last night. We’re reading sketches. A white guy in my class writes a character called ‘Mr Ono’ and I volunteer to play him, because literally no one else will. The writer scolds me, “Hey, make sure not to read the guy in a racist way.” The white kids in…