I had a visit from a census worker Wednesday evening. They felt that there were errors in the form I filled out on-line.
Apparently checking the box "native American" set off some flags. So as we are standing in front of my door, she looks at me and asks,
"You checked that you are native American, did you have your lineage checked?". My reply was that I did not need to check anything. My father was born on the US, my grand-father was born in the US and I was born in the US. According to a simple definition of "native", I am native. She tried to explain how the term did not mean that. She went on to say things like the original inhabitants, the indiginous people. I said that I am an indiginus person, having been born here with at least three generations being native. I could see that she was struggling trying not to say Indian. So I said, "You mean American Indian". She said that we're not supposed to use that term. So I asked her what my choices were, she read a list, white was on the list. I told her that I am certainly not white, her paper was white. I've only met a few people who are "white". Just put me down as "other". The next question was about my sex, how do I identify. I asked her what choices I had. I don't remember all of the responses, something about non-binary was one of them. I just told her that I was male. She then asked if anyone else lived in the house. When I told her yes my wife Vicki, she asked what race she identifies as. I hesitated a moment, I could see in her face that she was a bit troubled, I said just put other there too. And the last question was about Vicki's sex. I really wanted to say something like she's a space alien or a toaster or something else absurd, but I could see by the look on this poor college student's face that the lubrication to the gears in her brain was failing, so I just said female. Common sense is a thing long gone. Maybe we can bring it back in the next generation.
