1y ago

US changes how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. It's the first revision in 27 years

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.

U.S. News @beehaw.org

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1y ago

US changes how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. It's the first revision in 27 years

apnews.com /article/race-ethnicity-census-bureau-hispanics-0b2c325b683efd95e8e8e24235654abd

86 comments

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
- 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.
- its* origins
  
  Oh yeah I also wrote clarification instead of classification. I'm swiping on an Android phone keyboard. Its* easy to make mistakes.
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.
  
  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".
  
  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?
  
  you can't fix racism without specifically helping the victims of said racism.
  I think the opposition to that often comes from the fact that victims of racism are selected on the grounds of race and those not being helped are similarly excluded from it based on race
I know this isn't that important in the grand scheme of things, but I will always be confused on what to put for myself. My family comes from Central America (I have dual citizenship), so I should pick Hispanic, right? But my family is also white Hispanic, my cousin's have a range of blonde and red hair, light eyes. I also have some Asian Hispanics in my family.
Hispanic really isn't a race and it feels like I'm not supposed to pick it on the census because I don't have the right skin color.
Whereas someone who does look Hispanic the way people think of, but maybe their family hasn't lived there for generations, they get to be considered more Hispanic than me. It's just confusing.
- Hispanic is an ethnicity, which is based on culture, while white/black/native american are based on genetics (theoretically).
  Many (most?) Hispanic people in Central America are considered white because so much of their ancestry is Spanish or Portuguese. It sounds like you may have a higher proportion than most, is all.
  But if there is a large portion of Asian Hispanic people in your ancestry, you may be mixed race Hispanic.
  
  Yeah definitely that's how I understood it, but now it sounds like they are categorizing Hispanic as a race not an ethnicity.
- There also isn't an option for brown Hispanic, I always pick other
- Just choose what you identify as. Sounds like white or Hispanic. Just pick one. It's not that important. It's not a personality quiz.
- Only put down what the number of people in your household for the census. If it is anything else just select decline if decline isn't an option select other and write human.
  My very much fuck the power grandmother told me this and I have been doing this ever since
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.
- Some forms already allowed this, and I welcomed it. It seems like it will be the norm now.
- Yes you can choose more than one option according to the article
- 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.
It’s the end of a 27-year dataset and the beginning of a new one. Great for comparing our future to our past, no doubt.
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.
Can I check Half-Orc Paladin?
- Character class is on a separate question.
If the government really wanted to collect data for insuring that minority groups have equal representation, they would collect your blood type information and use that instead. Since O+ is the majority of blood type in the world, I feel underrepresented in every respect.
- O+ is a suckers game. O- represent!
  
  Thank you!

86 comments