There was no doubt in my mind that I was qualified, and I didn’t want people to assume that I got opportunities only because of my race and gender. At the end of the day, it was a matter of personal pride. The more I grew, the more I could recognize the privileged educational opportunities I had at a young age, when I visited art galleries and science labs. My exposure to science and technology was the exception, and exceptionalism would not change the overall fabric of society. Exceptionalism also carried the danger of tokenism, which allowed systemic issues to be ignored by pointing to a few
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