As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear more about the psychology of this.
I remember when I was growing up in the 90s and 00s in California, people talked about race way less than they do today. When ethnic representation became a common topic of conversation, I had a hard time believing it at first, because it seemed so self-evidently obvious to me that race wasn't a particularly important characteristic of a person. I actually had the experience of thinking back to my time in jr high/high school and thinking "wow, that friend of mine had dark skin, and they weren't from India... I guess they were Black, huh".
I'm not trying to claim that I didn't have subconscious biases related to race as a kid. I'm sure I did. But I do suspect they have become a lot more severe as a result of people talking about race so much -- it has become a much more salient characteristic. (I'm also more aware of trying to mitigate my biases and avoid microaggressions and so on, of course.)
So yeah, I'm curious to compare notes with other 90s kids in this regard. I'm white, but if I was Black, I imagine that I'd be way more self-conscious about it now than I was when I was growing up. (Like, if I'm the only white person in a group, I feel self-conscious about it now in a way that I didn't feel when I was a kid.)
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear more about the psychology of this.
I remember when I was growing up in the 90s and 00s in California, people talked about race way less than they do today. When ethnic representation became a common topic of conversation, I had a hard time believing it at first, because it seemed so self-evidently obvious to me that race wasn't a particularly important characteristic of a person. I actually had the experience of thinking back to my time in jr high/high school and thinking "wow, that friend of mine had dark skin, and they weren't from India... I guess they were Black, huh".
I'm not trying to claim that I didn't have subconscious biases related to race as a kid. I'm sure I did. But I do suspect they have become a lot more severe as a result of people talking about race so much -- it has become a much more salient characteristic. (I'm also more aware of trying to mitigate my biases and avoid microaggressions and so on, of course.)
So yeah, I'm curious to compare notes with other 90s kids in this regard. I'm white, but if I was Black, I imagine that I'd be way more self-conscious about it now than I was when I was growing up. (Like, if I'm the only white person in a group, I feel self-conscious about it now in a way that I didn't feel when I was a kid.)