Girl, I feel this! My mother's family are British Isles/Norwegian, my Dad's family are stolen West Africans. We've been in Canada/ the US since the 1600s and I still, at 53, get "exotic." I even wrote about it a couple years ago,

If you look at me quickly, I look like a white woman with strangely curly hair. For me, the "exotic" has been more men fetishizing my African roots..."jungle fever" and all that. Clealry, I must be freaky in the sack or some such nonsense. But I speak so well...ha!

I've never considered the few times women have said it to me. You've given me pause to think. It does have that, "One of these things just ain't like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..."

You belong. I belong. Anyone who says otherwise is a bigot.