Choosing a Racial Identity

When filling out any standardized forms, one of the questions everyone has to answer is "Ethnicity". A list of choices is given (and, of course these choices may vary, dependent on the part of the country where you live and the purpose of the form). You are asked to choose which ethnicity "best describes you". What exactly does this mean? Does it mean how it best describes how people see you? Does it mean how it best describes the language you speak? Does it mean how it best describes the hue of your skin? For some people, checking the box on this form is a no-brainer; for me, it always becomes a moral conundrum...

Let me just explain. I had a crush on a certain boy for several years during elementary school. While I worked very hard to keep this crush a secret, I let the cat out of the bag during lunch in the fourth grade. Yes, I can remember exactly where and when it happened, for this incident is burned into my memory as the first time I was introduced to the concept of race. During this particular lunch, I told a friend of mine that I had this crush, and he promptly turned to me and stated, "You can't like Landon. He's white and you're black." I was very confused, and after glancing down at my arm, I noticed that I was, indeed, browner than everyone else around me. I just mumbled something out of embarrassment, and finished my lunch quietly. (You may think that a 10 year old would have already understood racial differences by then, but I am not lying when I say that I had absolutely no idea. I had been well-protected by my parents up to this point.) When I returned home that afternoon, I quickly found my mother and asked her if that was, indeed, true. Was I black? Were all the rest of my friends white? What did that mean, anyway?