For the first time in 27 years, the U.S. government is changing how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity, an effort that federal officials believe will more accurately count residents who identify as Hispanic and of Middle Eastern and North African heritage.
The revisions to the minimum categories on race and ethnicity, announced Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget, are the latest effort to label and define the people of the United States. This evolving process often reflects changes in social attitudes and immigration, as well as a wish for people in an increasingly diverse society to see themselves in the numbers produced by the federal government.
I mean, the idea of having a census based on ethnicity feels implicitly racist from my perspective, although I get that there may be socioeconomic reasons for it beyond just… you know, segregation, in the US, perhaps.
But… yeah, every time I’ve had to fill an immigration form flying into the US it’s like being given a kafkaesque, Borges-esque critique of the concept of categorization. It’s hilarious. I wonder if they’ll make it better or worse.
You can’t argue you don’t see race when trying to fix a system that has been (and still is) implicitly racist. It’s like claiming asking holocaust vitcims about their ethnicity is racist when Germany was paying Jews reparations.
It’s why I always got pissed when ppl complained about Affirmative Action. Besides the utter bullshit claim of racial quotas (which were illegal when AA was still a thing) you can’t fix racism without specifically helping the victims of said racism.
But is that the same as keeping census data? I mean, you can absolutely provide people with support based on their social status, including ethnicity, you don’t need a set categorization of them or stored census data for that.
In any case, it’s a cultural issue, I’m not American and you guys get to run this stuff however you want. I don’t care.
I do care that every time I land in the US heavily jet lagged I’m asked to retrofit my family background into categories invented by some kind of alien entity that has heard about humans coming in different types but doesn’t quite grasp the concept.
I do care that every time I land in the US heavily jet lagged I’m asked to retrofit my family background into categories invented by some kind of alien entity that has heard about humans coming in different types but doesn’t quite grasp the concept.
Amazing, and accurate as fuck. Can I ask you to shit on people for me?
How do you help said ppl without knowing where they are, how many of them there are, and who is eligible (now and in the future) without long term catorgorization? It’s like claiming you can figure out a grocery stores inventory without ever writing anything down. Most countries don’t have this problem because they’re racially homogenous.
I do care that every time I land in the US heavily jet lagged I’m asked to retrofit my family background into categories invented by some kind of alien entity that has heard about humans coming in different types but doesn’t quite grasp the concept.
Im sorry about your slight inconvenience after circumventing the globe but if you have an issue with it blame Europe (mainly the English).
If you need information to, for example, determine if FHA loans are weighted unfairly towards people considered to be white or appearing to be white, then you need demographics information. Having a self-assessment of race is really the only way to get it even if it might not be as accurate as we might hope.
I would argue you do need census data, because that provides the data for where resources should be distributed. If I am trying to combat a racialized system that gives African Americans fewer resources, I need to know where the African Americans are.
Consider the scenarios that result in the practice of redlining. Back in the day, schools were racially segregated. To combat this, the government began forcefully integrating schools by bussing in students who were otherwise considered “outside” of the district. So the racists move further away to preserve their effectively segregated communities, closing their businesses and bringing their wealth with them.
The formerly integrated, now majority-minority neighborhoods are left with little capital to support the growth of business as well as less capital coming in the form of municipal taxes (why that is still a thing is beyond me as well). So a neighborhood with less financial resources through business/tax revenue faces crumbling infrastructure along with brain drain due to academics not willing to serve as educators in these neighborhoods.
The census helps levels of government at higher tiers than the municipal level recognize when areas are being underserved due to racial discrimination and compensate with distribution of state/federal resources. The suburban schools around Boston, for example (which are majority white) are almost wholly funded by property taxes collected in the towns that the school districts serve, but the urban schools in the city receive substantially more state funding to incentivise educators to come in for higher paying jobs and ensure that minority students who were forced back into de facto segregated systems can still receive a quality education and help counteract the effects of redlining.
The state of things right now is definitely not perfect, but it could be a lot worse if we were just combatting racism with colorblindness.
We can and we do.
We straight-up outlawed ethnic categorization.
Because we have a different history than the US. Last time we had a Big Ethnic Event™ some motherfuckers wearing Hugo Boss came in and went through every bit of census information we had to commit genocide against people that are otherwise indistinguishable from the general population.
Also positive discrimination is viewed, even by some progressives, as “bad” as in “on a philosophical level I think it’s wrong” (I this is largely due to the stronger influence of Humanism and much lower penetration of CRT). I have to stress, this is not a matter of whether positive discrimination works, it’s a matter of philosophy.
So with THAT in mind it’s not hard to see why Europeans are culturally very put off with America’s approach of putting everyone in labelled boxes. There’s still a debate being had about CRT, but I think everyone agrees that the state MUST NOT have an “ethnic database”.
Europeans are culturally very put off with America’s approach of putting everyone in labelled boxes.
I wish I had a buck for every time I heard an atheist in Europe complain about having to identify with a specific church for tax purposes.
While that be MIGHT be true that you can’t solve a problem unless you know the exact extent of the problem I question how you know the motivations of people gathering this data. Especially since it started well well before the civil rights movement.
When I see bigots doing x,y,and z and people claiming to stop bigots doing x,y I wonder if z is coming later. Specifically do you really think the last census was going to ask about citizenship information to ensure racism would be diminished?
The article seems to imply that people will be able to select multiple options but isn’t very clear when it describes doing that. Does this mean that someone who is half white and half Asian will be able to select both? It’s always struck me as odd that we’re expected to choose one or the other.
as a european i always wondered why this is even asked…?
is this important for taxes? for something else? just statistics?
These data are used for lots of stuff, including guaranteeing rights for protected classes, which in the US includes race.
For example, you could use this info to prove that a redistricting is racist and illegal by showing that it unfairly groups areas of certain ethnicities into one district. Without official census data that includes race, anti-discrimination legislation would be harder to enforce in the courts.
As an American I have always wondered why European governments demand to know your religion.
oh that’s easy - tax stuff 😐
do US forms not ask for the religion?
to be clear, because it seems like you are a bit upset, i was not shitting on the usa to be doing this, there seem to be reasons, i just never understood why it is like this 🤷
Race isn’t really a valid scientific classification, its origins are based on efforts to prove superiority, as far as I know.
“The first federal standards on race and ethnicity were produced in 1977… last updated in 1997 when five minimum race categories were delineated — American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and white”
Anything would be an improvement
Oh yeah I also wrote clarification instead of classification. I’m swiping on an Android phone keyboard. Its* easy to make mistakes.
I would agree that those are the origins, but I would also say, considering entire classes of people have the whole institution of government working against them, and have throughout this nation’s history, that such demographic information, unscientific as it may be, is important.
Yes, it won’t mean it’s really accurate since it’s a self-assessment, but an approximate count of people who are black or indigenous is helpful when it comes to equity and restitution. Is it unscientific? Yes. But I have no idea how else we can address things like institutional racism and hate crimes without considering demographics.
the whole institution of government working against them
Why the unnecessary exaggeration? We have parts of the government that are specifically for combating racism. We have plenty of people in government fighting for equality or to remove institutional racism. Arguing that the whole government is working against them is patently false.
All this does is feed the people who believe we live in a post-racism society - or worse that the government has become racist against white people - an argument that the people who argue institutional racism still exists are unreasonable.
It’s still a major issue that needs to be addressed, no reason to exaggerate it, and on top of that it probably works against the desired outcome; if we want to be on the side of objective reason, it’s best to remain reasonable and objective.
We have parts of the government that are specifically for combating racism.
We have bullshit performative parts of the government that do nothing about institutional racism.
We have plenty of people in government fighting for equality or to remove institutional racism.
Again, mostly performatively.
Arguing that the whole government is working against them is patently false.
Okay, most of the government. The parts that actually have an effect on the lives of people of color.
Better?
All this does is feed the people who believe we live in a post-racism society - or worse that the government has become racist against white people - an argument that the people who argue institutional racism still exists are unreasonable.
So we shouldn’t talk about institutional racism because it feeds racists. Got it. I won’t ever mention it again.
Can I check Half-Orc Paladin?
The government shouldn’t even be collecting this data, the only thing it can and will be used for is racial discrimination.
Also, lumping people into these overly broad arbitrary categories is racist.
