Racial Identity Summary by Yasmine Bahrani Essay Example

In the piece called "Racial Identity in America Can’t We Just be Ourselves", Yasmine Bahrani, the writer, elaborates on the common inaccuracies surrounding racial identity worldwide. Bahrani further states that some individuals might derive amusement from assigning her into predetermined racial groups. Similarly, she too finds amusement in how these racial groups perceive her belonging.

Bahrani shares her experiences and connotations of race in England, indicating that everyone who, like her, was previously part of a colony is labeled as black (Bahrani 1). She provides an incident when she met a friendly German woman who questioned even her American identity based on the color of her hair – black (1). Bahrani recounts how she identified as white while studying in an Indiana university (2). But her sense of racial identity faced changes, and as she puts it, "[she] believed them, b