Have You Ever Tried To Hide Your Racial or Ethnic Identity?

No. Except maybe during my initial few MiRC chats when the internet was all new and shiny to me back when I was 20-21. Then it seemed fun to have a secret (fake) identity and being anyone you wanted to be was exciting and a little daring. I could create a whole new life and person and by gosh, his life sounded a whole lot more exciting to me. Infact he was from Canada was only 1/4 Indian and 1/4s Swedish, Finnish & Dutch! Don’t ask me, I just came up with it at that time. Those sounded like all good countries that I wanted to visit.

But I haven’t done that since. I can’t change my race or ethnicity nor would I ever want to. Why would I? There’s a lot to be proud of being an Indian – just like more other ethnicity. Sure there’s a bunch of shitty things too – who doesn’t have that? No nation or culture is perfect and they all have glaring flaws. Some less than the others but still far from 100% guilt free. It’s up to you to make personal changes in your life – you don’t like something change it!

And I notice sometimes certain people of certain places tend to point out the negative things (or what they term to be negative) about my culture or nation or people – they seem to forget the shit that their countries or people do. It’s a racist thing at times or pure ignorance and a lot of West looking down on the developing nations / 3rd World Nations. You can’t help that but point out their bullshit.

Prompt from The Learning Network at The New York Times