> I have to immediately force myself to be twice as charming, friendly, witty, and intelligent sounding as the equivalent white or Asian person just to be taken seriously.

I'm of North African descent, born and raised in france and this passage really hit home.

> I don't really know that there's any solution to this, it's just something we have to live with.

Unfortunately there isn't. I don't know much about the American social structure and context, but over here, colonialist views are very much embedded into the collective subconscious, leading to sometimes very despicable behaviour (even though it may not be malicious).

The thing I find the most difficult is to suppress the urge of turning this into a "Us vs Them" thing because reality is much more complex than what we perceive but living with an inner "respectability police officer" can become extremely tiring. All of this to say that I choose to ignore the noise and focus on the positive. At the end of the day, we live in an era where this is how the game is played and we've been dealt a bad hand. I accept it and will do everything I can to help create a world where my children don't have to go through the same things as me.

I will end my comment with a piece of actionable advice anybody in a similar position might benefit from: Make yourself visible. I say this because a lot of the younger kids in my racial group (north west/west africa) don't even consider this industry as a viable career option even though they may have an interest or a strong ability. They just dismiss the possibility entirely. This doesn't mean we have to force our kids to become SWDs/POs/PMs/<insert tech job du jour>s but making yourself visible (via youtube videos, conference talks, going to local schools to introduce your job ...) can have a massive impact in having those kids think "Hey he/she looks like me, maybe I can follow a similar path".

EDIT: added last paragraph