‘Some Other Race’, or as I say, ‘Other’, is a growing demographic.

In 1987, a 16 year old version of me walked into a financial aid office in Texas. I was an emancipated minor, of severely mixed heritage and no idea of my actual genealogy beyond my immediate parents.

I was asked if I had any ‘black’ or ‘hispanic’ in my heritage.

As far as I knew, the answer was ‘no’.

I filled out a bunch of paperwork during registration, and the first time it asked me about race it presented me with options that didn’t fit me, and at the bottom, “Other”. Disaster averted. Below, a line asked what I was if I had chosen other. I stared for a while. I contemplated.

“None of the above.”

This would be how I filled out every piece of paperwork asking me about this. When I joined the Navy, the recruiter asked me the same question about being black or hispanic, because they got points for that. I shook my head ‘no’, but my recruiter said, “You look hispanic”, and I suspect that despite my denial he may have put down hispanic for my recruitment. After all, it was more points for him, and it didn’t really affect my enlistment.

I’ve always considered myself a tribe of one, but I’ve been mistaken for other tribes more than once. In the U.S., depending on how I grew my facial hair, I was some version of Latino, with the exception of Hawaii where I was considered Filipino. I got all the prejudice that came with that. In other parts of the world, it varied, but I was generally an outsider with the exception of Hawaii where I was pretty much accepted for who I am by Samoans. Good folks, those Samoans.

A conversation on Mastodon had me pipe in about those that show up as ‘other’ related to financial aid. I was shouted down – some folks seemed to think I was airing some ‘white grievances’, which was most amusing because at least 2 of the people were, based on profile pictures, melanin deprived. One even said it appeared as if I was looking for a cookie. Real inclusive people, these. Glad I didn’t meet them in a dark alley, they might think I wasn’t persecuted enough and throw a beat down on me.

I hadn’t attacked anyone else’s needs for assistance, or denied anyone else’s persecutions. I was simply pointing out that people who didn’t neatly blend into the discourse on race existed, and had their owntroubles – troubles I myself am not worried about since I have managed and am on the slide down from. Younger generations deserve the acknowledgment as they begin the stairs to that slide. Present systems ignore them because… well, because the system wasn’t designed for ‘others’.

It ends up ‘Other’ is a growing statistic. I’ve been doing some research, and will follow this post up with some pretty interesting stuff related to the U.S. Census Bureau. It ends up on pulling on this thread, a lot of problems start showing up, from social media to healthcare to… well… other things.

More tomorrow.