Unequivocally stating its solidarity with the protests for racial justice that swept the nation this past summer, Ancestry.com announced in a recent press release that it will stop beating around the bush and just tell you that Great-grandma was a Klan member.
“America has a long history of systemic oppression, targeted primarily at Indigenous and Black communities,” wrote CEO Margo Georgiadis, who promised that the company is committed to undertaking the difficult and necessary work of dismantling white supremacy by pointing out all the bigots in your genealogy. “In order to achieve that goal and embody anti-racist values, I need to tell you that we are going to stop sugarcoating your great-grandmother Ethel’s life story. Instead of just owning a cute little bakery in St. Louis like we told you, she was also a prominent leader of the Women’s Ku Klux Klan throughout the 1920s.”
Georgiadis went on to write that telling you these detailed and uncomfortable facts about Ethel is a key component of Ancestry.com’s 2021 Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion action plan.
“As a business, we need to fully acknowledge the centuries of oppression in this country that started with slavery and genocide and continued with the Confederacy, Jim Crow era segregation and voter suppression, forced migration, discriminatory housing and immigration policies, police brutality and more,” explained Georgiadis after searching through a database that contained all your voluntarily submitted personal information as well as detailed results from a genetic test you sent to the company.
“So, for us to do that, you really need to know that Ethel wasn’t just known for her scrumptious brownies. In addition to her many other abhorrent views, she was also a prolific anti-Semite. Sorry we left that part out, oops!”
Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
Contact Prateek Joshi at pjoshi2 ‘at’ stanford.edu.