Now don’t get me wrong, I’m mixed black/white. Most of America sees me as black genetically because…history. But I’ve always considered myself mixed because of how racially ambiguous I look and the culture I grew up with.

So long story short, I was talking casually with one of the managers outside while I was vaping and he was smoking. Then he said something about me being the only black, bisexual etc. female working our shift and laughed. This has nothing to do with what we were talking about so it threw me off. I corrected him by saying that actually I consider myself “mixed/multiracial” because it’s more accurate. Then he rolled his eyes and said I ruined the joke and insisted on calling me black instead (he’s white/mono-racial). So after saying I get that (not seeing how that’s a “joke”), but I still consider myself multiracial (didn’t think I needed to go into why), he seemed annoyed that I didn’t go with his label of me. Thing is, I’m still kinda new there and just recently he told me he keeps forgetting I’m “not Mexican” 🙄

I overheard him talking about me to another mixed guy at work about me not identifying as black. Not sure why he’s reacting this way to how I label myself or why he thinks he needs to verify with another minority but it really bothered me. I didn’t bring it up again because I felt like the “joke” was already unprofessional.

How should I have approached this? Anyone have thoughts/ideas on what they would have done or reacted?