that time i forgot I'm white
I'm also white in Mexico, but gringa, which is, as I experienced that day, not the same as being white in the US.
It was here in Mexico, where I have lived 11 years. But I was, for the wedding of a Scandinavian to a US national (not gringo), at a table with mostly US guests who had traveled for the event, but not gringos, all brown except me.
We were chilling like nothing, fun wedding guests, and then I realized I was regarded with suspicion sometimes when the conversation reached certain topics. They knew what system I am from, but being outside it for so long now, I had forgotten its effects. In this case, the mistrust it generates and the ways we field ourselves to make sure we don't show disregard for the system that oppresses us all.
Not cool, to come back to that feeling while not even in the US, but it served to show how stark the system is to those no longer used to it, and to remind me that for the most part brown people in the US never have the opportunity to forget it at all, not even a moment of respite.