Illustration by Judith Kim for BuzzFeed

As a mixed-race woman, the defining question of my life has not been “Who am I?” but “What are you?” I get it everywhere, from all races. Recently it’s been mostly from Asian immigrants. You Chinese? Last month a black guy walked up to me while I was pumping gas. Man! How do you people do that international thing? It’s an invasive line of questioning, under the guise of a friendly compliment. “You know how you could look more Asian?” my white boss once asked as I clocked out of work. “If you cut your bangs like this and did your makeup like this...” My acupuncturist, meanwhile, thinks I look more Asian in a ponytail. Most women are accustomed to having their physical appearance treated like public property up for consumption. But when it comes to mixed-race women, our looks are quantified, measured and divvied up, all the way back to conception. How we were cooked up, what our ingredients are, and why we taste so good — people are entitled to know all of it. “It's a suitable time to think of all the sexy ladies who’ve come about thanks to people of different races procreating,” wrote Josh Robertson in his preamble to Complex’s “The 50 Hottest Biracial Women,” “And it’s not just blacks and whites. Hispanics with Asians! Asians with blacks! Whites with Hispanics! American Indians with other kind of Indians!” These pairings yielded a slideshow’s worth of unique female flavors. “So here, enjoy these mocha-colored, honey-tinted, caramel-complected babes.”

This is only the cheapest version of a palatably post-racial fantasy that is surprisingly popular. Slate featured Stunning Portraits of Mixed-Race Families, designed to facilitate comparing and contrasting family members’ traits. Last year, National Geographic published photos of mixed-race people to suggest what Americans will look like in 2050. The portraits (some of which were of models shot by a fashion photographer) went viral, sending some readers into paroxysms of horny idealism. “In a matter of years we’ll have Tindered, OkCupid-ed and otherwise sexed ourselves into one giant amalgamated mega-race,” Mic writer Zak Cheney-Rice wrote. “2050 remains decades away, but if these images are any preview, it’s definitely a year worth waiting for.” If 2050 is the year that 400 years of racism ends in one fell, photogenic swoop, then sure, I can’t wait. But forgive me if our collective crushes on Rashida Jones, Lolo Jones, and Norah Jones don’t inspire hope. Beauty is a cultural value whose definition has changed dramatically over time. But science and society have a long history of justifying our shifting tastes when it comes to race. White supremacy has been bolstered through race-based compulsory sterilization, anti-miscegenation laws, and likening people of color to animals. We know race is not biological and humans are 99.9% similar genetically. Nonetheless, U.K. psychologists recently claimed that mixed-race people are more attractive and successful than nonmixed people. Cross-breeding, the authors of the 2010 study hypothesized, produces people who are more “genetically fit” and beautiful — a matter of Darwinian survival. Guess who else used Darwin to argue their superior, stronger, “better evolved” race was advancing the human species? White people.