So, yay for the Internet. In the past few years I’ve found big groups of Black and brown people online with whom to discuss cool stories and get recommendations for even better ones. When I make jokes in these spaces, they don’t flop because people actually understand the cultural references (Dear White People of Reddit…). I don’t have to convince them that having one of the only brown human characters in Dragon Age 1 and 2 be a randy pirate woman is problematic. It’s been nice.

It has also been a little disorienting. Even though I share interests and some race-based cultural knowledge with many of these people, it doesn’t seem that I have shared experiences when it comes to how my interests affected my perception of my racial self and my community membership.

When the conversation starts about how none of us ever really fit in with the other…