Individual Identity is Chosen, Not Inherited
As Ayn Rand wrote, the question isn’t: Who will let me? The question is: Who will stop me? And how can anyone stop me? You Can Choose to Accept or Reject Any Racial, Cultural, Religious, or Social Identity that You are Born Into. I was born the son of a white Jewish mother and a brown Muslim father, so I was essentially given a choice, choose to be Jewish and white, or choose to be Muslim and a person of color. And I chose: neither. I chose to be an Objectivist and a Libertarian and LGBTQ, and to embrace those cultures, those works of literature, that music, instead of either of the two cultures I was born into. And perhaps it was easier for me, because, as someone who could have belonged to both, I fully belonged to neither, but I firmly believe that anyone can do this. People just blindly accept the culture they are born into, because their family is that and their community is that and everyone they know is that and they told that is what they are and they have no choice ...