I’m biracial and it’s not my job to ease your discomfort.

I’m the daughter of a white woman and a black man. This is an identity I’ve never shied away from, despite how uncomfortable it makes some people.

I’ve spent most of my life in a world of presumed whiteness. It doesn’t matter how I identify or see myself, how many times I point out my truth, there’s always something or someone — friends and family included — trying to tell me who I am and who I’m not.

In school, I’d always point out to my teachers when a standardized test mislabeled me as “white” instead of “other” or “two or more races.” I was also that kid who was called an “uh-oh Oreo” and was told repeatedly that I was the “whitest black girl” other kids knew. It didn’t help that I grew up in largely white suburbs; in a school where among my class, I could count the number of kids of color on one hand.

When it came to my friends, I was the token friend. I was turned to when it came to determining if something someone said was racist or pointed out any time race entered the discussion.

I was also frequently outed when it came to racist, anti-black sentiments. “Hey, Tara’s black!” one white friend would shout after a white peer said something racist, to which that person would respond with an apology because what else were they supposed to do? To them, the implication that I might see them as a racist was much worse than the fact that they already were.

I don’t know what’s worse: That fake, half-assed apology or the performative action of my friends who felt the need to point out my biracial-ness, putting the burden on me to call out this person’s racism, rather than doing it themselves.

When it comes to my family, it’s less of a topic of contention than it used to be. But growing up, I had numerous arguments with white family members because sometimes, when people found out I was biracial they’d treat or speak to me differently and of course, I thought I could turn to my family to talk about it. But once I pointed out that they didn’t understand because it was an experience they didn’t share, they would reply indignantly, “Everyone’s mixed! I probably have a little bit of black in me!”

Back then, I didn’t know how to react to that statement, other than say, “it’s different,” a statement that would often only enrage them further. But now I recognize that statement for what it was: an attempt to claim an experience that was not theirs and belittle me for having gone through it. A micro-aggression. Erasure.

Strangers are probably the worst offenders. Not because what they say is particularly aggressive or dismissive — no, that’s where friends and family members take the cake — but because they feel entitled to me. They feel that I owe them a reason; an explanation for my existence. They feel so entitled that they’ll come right out and ask me, “What are you?” without so much as introducing themselves.

Sometimes, the stranger asking is a new co-worker to which my answer is: your colleague. Sometimes it’s a random guy at the club, who has the word “exotic” on the tip of his tongue because he knows I’ve got a little something in me, he’s just not sure what. Sometimes it’s a girl who wants to know how I got my hair to curl like that and if she can touch it. (To which the answers are: genetics and no).

On other occasions I’ve been told that I don’t look black so it “doesn’t count” and that I need to “prove” my black-ness for people to believe me.

I’d be lying if I said these things didn’t get to me. When I thought about an image to accompany this, I felt like I couldn’t use just any picture of a biracial person. It had to be one of me; one that proved my identity. An image that allowed me to speak on a subject that I should be allowed to speak about just by nature of existing. But is it so wrong to want to be seen the way I see myself?

Ultimately, I know I’ll always be white in the eyes of people. I don’t have a lived experience of being black in the U.S.; people don’t follow me around stores when I wear hoodies, police don’t target me because of my skin color, no one insults the way I speak or infers I’m uneducated because of it.

I’m afforded the privilege of a white woman and that allows me into spaces I otherwise wouldn’t be allowed in.

It allows me to discuss my experience on my own terms; centering me in conversations about my identity, rather than the discomfort of the unknown from others.