City of Lights - Technology and privilege

City of Lights - Technology and privilege

Lynn Calvin

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Technology and privilege	[Oct. 18th, 2008\|01:22 pm]
I realized this morning that it makes a difference if you use computers routinely for things. I've been needing to get some blood drawn for some periodic monitoring (I'm supposed to do it more often than I do.) I tend to put it off because on any given Saturday the thought of sitting around at the Quest Diagnostics and waiting and waiting on an empty stomach does not appeal. It can take an hour on Saturdays with a waiting room full of small children. Last night, just before I went to bed, I remembered a sign that they had posted at that location that they had online appointments. So a little after midnight, I thought "I should do that." They had a 10:20 slot, I made the appointment, showed up at 10:20, along with the person who had a 10:30 slot. I was in and out in about 12 minutes. Past a waiting room full of people. There was a gentleman ahead of both of us who had the 10:10 slot who was coming out as we signed in. The thing that made me think of this as privilege was people in the waiting room, who appeared to be from the walk ins on the waiting list. It's a single waiting list and there were people who had been there for at least half an hour that I walked right past because I had an appointment, made at after midnight the night before. Mostly young, several with family members with them, including several young children. Hispanic and one older black woman. And the three of us who had made on-line appointments and walked in and out? Middle aged and presenting as white. I'm not drawing either deep meaning or guilt from this, but I did notice.
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Comments:

From:

cronesmoon
2008-10-19 03:17 pm (UTC)

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No reason you should draw deep meaning or guilt from it, as they couldn't tell online what age, color, or income bracket you were. However, it's a strong reminder to us to think carefully before we draw deep meaning or vexation from seeing someone else get preferential treatment for reasons we can only guess. We might well guess wrong.

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From:

romsfuulynn
2008-10-19 06:53 pm (UTC)

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I don't think it's anything except the fact that when you have resources you get things that aren't visible. I got the better part of an hour of my time. I'd even guess that some of those waiting could have done it - computers are so pervasive. But it's a paradigm change.

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