I’ve always found my racial background to be one of the more important and defining features of my personality. The child of a black mother and white father, I told my parents, at age nine, over dinner that I didn’t agree with interracial dating.

“When I date,” I said, “I will only date people who are half-black and half-white like me. But the opposite. The people I date will have to have a black father and a white mother.”

As with most of my dreams, my parents took it in stride.

“Good luck with that,” my dad said, "Want some more macaroni?"