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.
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.
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 bullshit performative parts of the government that do nothing about institutional racism.
Again, mostly performatively.
Okay, most of the government. The parts that actually have an effect on the lives of people of color.
Better?
So we shouldn’t talk about institutional racism because it feeds racists. Got it. I won’t ever mention it again.
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.
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.
Okay. I demonstrated your point was false by pointing to actual verifiable things. You’re just making vague claims now. So by what metric are you judging that things have gotten worse? And how does that prove the whole government is working against them now?
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.