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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.
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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.
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).
Im sorry about your slight inconvenience after circumventing the globe but if you have an issue with it blame Europe (mainly the English).
It’s funny because I’m scratching my head over their comment. I’m a European mutt, my wife is an south/se/eastern Asian mutt. I can recall a couple of times (maybe even only once) where when filling out a form I was stuck with a radio button when it comes to my kids’ ethnicities, and I was left scratching my head. . .but I can’t remember the last time this happened. We have travelled abroad with them a few times, and not once did I feel like it was difficult to fill out some form when we returned.
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?
If you want to know where poverty is found in the US you can just ask the IRS. Effectively every adult is reporting their income and major property every year. Additionally, you could easily look at services for the marginal. How many empty beds are in the this particular homeless shelter, how many people in the area applied for food stamps, etc.
It really doesn’t matter that much. All you have to do is read a single bill that gets passed in Washington and it becomes clear that need of a population has no relationship with funding for that population.
Unemployment / poverty rate / crime rate / homelessness?
I do blame Europe, and specifically the English for most things.
We do have specific eligibility for certain things based on ethnicity and origin, and it’s not a particularly hard thing to manage, honestly. I mean, what’s the difference between declaring it periodically on a census and declaring it at the time of requesting whatever it is you’re elligible for? It’s a self-identification question either way.
Because governments have a budget and keeping a detailed account of population makeup helps with budgeting.
Let’s set aside $2.5 million of aid for group X this year. There’s only like 10000 of them probably. We didn’t count. What do you do if there’s actually 33 million of them? Give them $10 and call it a day
Now the opposite. What if you set aside $5.6 billion but there’s only 1000 of them? Guess we’ll just axe money we were going to use for school lunches for kids to make them the richest race on the planet.
Alright, let me start by restating that I acknowledge socioeconomic reasons why the US may want to do this and that I’m not American and don’t feel about this strongly. Others have provided more detailed examples in this thread and I assume those make some sense. I wouldn’t know.
Now, that being said, either you’re underestimating my awareness of public affairs enough that you’ve reduced this response to absurdity or your view of the whole process is kind of skewed. You absolutely have tools to know how big a socioeconomic group is without needing strict categorization or census data. And I’m going to go ahead and assume the US doesn’t budget public aid based on handing out money to people based on race. That sounds more like a far right fever dream of how that works.
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.
I mean, like I said, I’m not American, I don’t have a horse in this race at all…
…but am I the only one surprised that in a country driven by of anarchocapitalism and endless Hobbesian paranoia white rich guys seem to be unusually fine with specifically this quirk of government oversight? Because it’s not super usual, it’s a rather American thing.
I get that you do want to correct specific, race-driven bias in things like those, and I get that the absolute insanity of some of the pushback necessitates different measures, but if the racists have the tools to enact the racist policy surely so do the policymakers pushing back.
I don’t want to be disingenuous, either. I fully understand that the US starts from a pre-segregated baseline. Part of the reason you don’t need those tools as much here is there was never a similar push for outright apartheid, so you’re not trying to make up for geography and ethnicity at once to the same level. But still, for a country that thinks having universal government ID is a step away from tyranny the willingness to ask broad questions on protected categories like ethnicity or religion seems… surprising to me.
You can do the same thing with standardized test scores. You don’t need to violate the privacy of people to know that the school their children go to is underperforming.
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 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?
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.
The one country I know does this is Germany. My experience is centered around Belgium/France, where the catholic church holds baptism records but does not share them with the government (and neither would the government even be allowed to ask in the first place AFAIK). As for ethnic categorization, I don’t know of a country which does that.
I see. So your government has literally no knowledge whatsoever about the Roma for example?
Another thing I love about Europeans the No True Scotsmen approach to things
“No European nation does that!”
“What about this one that does?”
“Well that is only one”
“Ok what about this other one that does it?”
“Well that doesn’t count because of X”
“Ok what about this third one?”
“Well that also doesn’t count cause of Y”
Why don’t you just say “Paris” or whatever your favorite city there is next time instead of the continent of Europe? It would be so much more accurate.
Oh and btw Finland also does religious surveys for taxes. Let me guess the Finns aren’t Europeans either?
I see. So your government has literally no knowledge whatsoever about the Roma for example?
There’s no registry of them no. We discriminate the old-fashioned way, such as by outlawing camping outside of certain areas which indirectly targets their way of life.
I also didn’t say that Germans aren’t European, but if all you can find on religious/ethnic state cataloguing in Europe is Germany and Finland doing some funky tax things, I think that only strengthens my point that we are VERY far from the US’s “please tell us your exact skin tone for, uh, statistics” approach. Europe is not a monolith but my goal was to show a different perspective, which I believe I have achieved and I don’t know why that offends you so much.
EDIT: I guess I could have been more clear in my first comment, but it’s pretty obvious to me that I don’t claim to speak for ALL of Europe since literally nobody can. I further clarified that my experience is that of someone raised in a Franco-Belgian culture but that I believe that it applies further in Europe, which I don’t think is as broad or incorrect of a claim as your make it to be.
About 60 seconds of research. Research you could have done.
UK and Ireland collect race and ethnicity, Hungary and Romania both ethnicity and language, the Netherlands and Norway collects on birth place of your parents and religion, Bulgaria on ethnicity, Poland on ethnicity and allegiance to another country, Czech lets you volunteer the information, the swiss ask you race ethnicity and religion, and Greece asks you about religion.
All of those countries don’t count as part of Europe! They must be like some weird ass quantum state European or not European depending on what point the user wants to make, causing the superposition state to collapse. Amazing the absolute flexibility of the human mind and it’s total willingness to embrace tribalism over all facts to the contrary.
As I told you the next time you feel the urge to say Europe just say Paris instead.
I don’t support the US government asking these questions. It is a gross violation of the 13th and 5th amendment. Whatever value this data could possibly have there are easier and better ways to get it. If you want to know where is poor it is easy to find that out through taxes. Me not supporting this practice doesn’t mean I get to pretend that it doesn’t exist elsewhere. And at the same time just because I don’t support the practice doesn’t mean I get to think the very worse things about those that do. Attack ideas, not people.
The church can share this information with the German church, damn leech trying anything to steal our money
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
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.
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.
Better?
No, it’s still patently BS. As much as there is still persistent institutional racism, it’s much better than it has been in the past. Remember, it wasn’t all that long ago that black people couldn’t even vote and were just shut out of nearly 100% of society. Where there was outright discrimination and segregation. The Civil Rights Act was a major thing, just 60 years ago. There are plenty of people who are still alive that were adults before the CRA was passed. These things are gone in many areas directly because actions taken by the government. When i was a kid, in a pretty liberal east coast area, it was still pretty okay to be openly racist. I don’t think, as kids, most people fully grasped what that meant or what they were doing, but I see how my kids treat race now and I can see the huge improvements. And that’s not even that long ago. And this is all because there has been a push, from the government, to make schools more inclusive and to teach kids about the insidiousness of racism and it’s persistence in our society.
So we shouldn’t talk about institutional racism because it feeds racists. Got it. I won’t ever mention it again.
I very clearly noted from the beginning that this was about the “unnecessary exaggeration” and I explicitly noted that institutionalized racism is “still a major issue that needs to be addressed.” And you are trying to claim I’m saying don’t talk about it at all?
Why the blatant lie about what I said? It’s like you’re just trying to be outraged.
What has been done about institutional racism in the past 20 years? Because all I’ve seen shows it’s a hell of a lot worse now than it was in the 1990s.
This is moving the goal posts. Why would I follow you to the next point if you won’t even admit the previous point was false?
If institutional racism has gotten worse and the only things being done are performative, I stand by my claim.
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 hear ya, man. Android swipe has betrayed me a few times.
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.
There also isn’t an option for brown Hispanic, I always pick other
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.
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.
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 🤷
Seems like a bunch of those countries there are also wanting to know what language you speak at home and the birth country of your parents.
Got to say it is pretty messed up having money go to some fucking shaman coming out of your paycheck against your will. The only place religion should be is in a museum and given that the world has several Holocaust museums already we don’t need to build any for Christianity, just drag a Jesus statue in there.
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.
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.
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!
