I don't often talk about race as it pertains to my life... it's a complicated situation and the stories are generally unpleasant.
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These systems, of course, provide important genealogical and historical information, often it's the only info about a person that survives.
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As was my bend at the time, when I was asked my race I declined to answer. My identity was changing rapidly and this option mattered.
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But the clerk told me she couldn't put that down. I had to pick something. I protested, saying that I didn't feel comfortable doing so.
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"I'll just put down 'white'," she told me, unrelenting. "It's the default."
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And that right there speaks volumes of how race is seen and handled in this community.
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This incident was the first time that I've really been hurt by erasure caused by institutional bias. It wouldn't be the last.
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Defaultism is a horrible thing, so ingrained that it appears in our computer systems and algorithms and how we handle ourselves in public.
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This is why tolerance isn't enough. Why we have to do better.
End of conversation
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