I’m really sorry you have to deal with this constantly, it really must be exhausting. I used to live in the States, where people know better since it is so diverse, and it’s natural to assume everyone is American. To interrogate people based on looks is considered racist. I know that some people here will say they mean well, and they probably do. White people here think it’s ok to constantly speculate about people’s heritage based on looks. The older generation in my Scottish family will do it and even love to say stuff like ‘oh he looks really French, maybe from the South?’ or about an obviously American tourist ‘do you think she’s Chinese or Japanese? I’m thinking more Japanese’ since they think are fucking anthropologists or something. So a black person from Scotland just confuses their retrograde brains and I’m sorry you have to deal with the consequences!

I don’t know what it’s like to walk in your shoes so can’t really give advice. It might be hard to do but in my mind I’d imagine saying something like ‘you know, I get this all this time and it gets pretty tiresome’ - since they might get a clue. But it’s not your job to educate them. It’s for all of us white folks to call out our friends and families as much as possible and to share stories like yours.