Of the eight questions on the typical 2010 Census form, two are about ethnicity and race:
The Census Bureau's website helpfully explains:
The next question is:
The Census Bureau explains:
Two general forms of resistance to these questions have been advocated:
1. Idealistic -- Answer "Human Race" or "American Race" or leave the questions blank.
2. Cynical -- Identify yourself as a member of a legally protected minority even if you are not, or your claim is far-fetched (e.g., "I'm African-American because my ancestors left Africa around 50,000 years ago") in the hopes of legally entitling you to affirmative action benefits.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but both attempts are likely to be counterproductive. In general, the people who benefit from disparate impact / affirmative action have spent a lot more time thinking about how to rig the system in their favor than you have about how to game it in yours. They've anticipated your every move.
For example, during the 1990s, some individuals with parents of different races began a successful campaign to be allowed to check more than one race box on the Census form so that they wouldn't be forced to choose between their parents. The Census Bureau said okay to that, at which point, the race lobbies such as the NAACP went nuts because if the data was interpreted in a reasonable matter (e.g., assigning fractions based on how many boxes checked), then their quotas would be smaller. So, just before the 2000 Census, Bill Clinton announced that people could check more than one box, but only the non-white boxes would count for calculating the size of quotas and doing disparate impact calculations.
So, the organized pressure groups have thought about this a lot harder than you have.
For example, if you are a non-Hispanic white person who fills in his race as "Human" or "American," you have merely made the burden the government imposes on your family members via disparate impact lawsuits worse.
My understanding is that Census-like numbers are sometimes used to calculate the denominators in the EEOC's Four-Fifths Rule calculations, but not the numerators.
Just because you put down on the Census form that you are, say, "Guamanian or Chamorro" doesn't mean you will personally get the benefit of the "Guamanian or Chamorro" quota. There's no cybernetic connection between what you put down on the Census form and what shows up on your job application.
If you put down "Guamanian or Chamorro" on your job application, eventually some bureaucrat will take a look at you and say, "No, you are not." It doesn't do you any good to whine, "Yes, but I put down Guamanian or Chamorro on my 2010 Census form, and if I got away with it there, why can't I get away with it here?"
However, because you checked "Guamanian or Chamorro" on your Census form, many "Guamanian or Chamorro" quotas will be larger. So, you and your relatives (assuming they are not Guamanian or Chamorro) lose.
As far as I can tell, the best thing you can do for yourself and your loved ones is to answer these questions honestly. If you are white and non-Hispanic, and you put that down on the Census form, then the quotas for protected groups will be smaller than if you try to be clever and put down something else.
In a world of official and de facto disparate impact quotas, numbers count. And by diminishing the size of your group, you just make things worse for everybody in your group.
NOTE: Please answer BOTH Questions 7 and 8.
7. Is Person 1 Spanish/Hispanic/Latino? Mark the "No" box if not Spanish/Hispanic/Latino.
_ No, not Spanish /Hispanic / Latino
_ Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano
_ Yes, Puerto Rican
_ Yes, Cuban
_ Yes, other Spanish /Hispanic / Latino — Print group.
________________________
The Census Bureau's website helpfully explains:
Asked since 1970. The data collected in this question are needed by federal agencies to monitor compliance with anti-discrimination provisions, such as under the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. State and local governments may use the data to help plan and administer bilingual programs for people of Hispanic origin.
The next question is:
8. What is Person 1’s race? Mark one or more races to indicate what this person considers himself/herself to be.
_ White
_ Black, African Am., or Negro
_ American Indian or Alaska Native — Print name of enrolled or principal tribe.
________________________________
_ Asian Indian
_ Chinese
_ Filipino
_ Other Asian — Print race.
________________________________
_ Japanese
_ Korean
_ Vietnamese
_ Native Hawaiian
_ Guamanian or Chamorro
_ Samoan
_ Other Pacific Islander — Print race.
________________________________
_ Some other race — Print race.
________________________________
The Census Bureau explains:
Asked since 1970. Race is key to implementing many federal laws and is needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. State governments use the data to determine congressional, state and local voting districts. Race data are also used to assess fairness of employment practices, to monitor racial disparities in characteristics such as health and education and to plan and obtain funds for public services.
Two general forms of resistance to these questions have been advocated:
1. Idealistic -- Answer "Human Race" or "American Race" or leave the questions blank.
2. Cynical -- Identify yourself as a member of a legally protected minority even if you are not, or your claim is far-fetched (e.g., "I'm African-American because my ancestors left Africa around 50,000 years ago") in the hopes of legally entitling you to affirmative action benefits.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but both attempts are likely to be counterproductive. In general, the people who benefit from disparate impact / affirmative action have spent a lot more time thinking about how to rig the system in their favor than you have about how to game it in yours. They've anticipated your every move.
For example, during the 1990s, some individuals with parents of different races began a successful campaign to be allowed to check more than one race box on the Census form so that they wouldn't be forced to choose between their parents. The Census Bureau said okay to that, at which point, the race lobbies such as the NAACP went nuts because if the data was interpreted in a reasonable matter (e.g., assigning fractions based on how many boxes checked), then their quotas would be smaller. So, just before the 2000 Census, Bill Clinton announced that people could check more than one box, but only the non-white boxes would count for calculating the size of quotas and doing disparate impact calculations.
So, the organized pressure groups have thought about this a lot harder than you have.
For example, if you are a non-Hispanic white person who fills in his race as "Human" or "American," you have merely made the burden the government imposes on your family members via disparate impact lawsuits worse.
My understanding is that Census-like numbers are sometimes used to calculate the denominators in the EEOC's Four-Fifths Rule calculations, but not the numerators.
Just because you put down on the Census form that you are, say, "Guamanian or Chamorro" doesn't mean you will personally get the benefit of the "Guamanian or Chamorro" quota. There's no cybernetic connection between what you put down on the Census form and what shows up on your job application.
If you put down "Guamanian or Chamorro" on your job application, eventually some bureaucrat will take a look at you and say, "No, you are not." It doesn't do you any good to whine, "Yes, but I put down Guamanian or Chamorro on my 2010 Census form, and if I got away with it there, why can't I get away with it here?"
However, because you checked "Guamanian or Chamorro" on your Census form, many "Guamanian or Chamorro" quotas will be larger. So, you and your relatives (assuming they are not Guamanian or Chamorro) lose.
As far as I can tell, the best thing you can do for yourself and your loved ones is to answer these questions honestly. If you are white and non-Hispanic, and you put that down on the Census form, then the quotas for protected groups will be smaller than if you try to be clever and put down something else.
In a world of official and de facto disparate impact quotas, numbers count. And by diminishing the size of your group, you just make things worse for everybody in your group.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
55 comments:
In the alternative, one might consider a national boycott of the census in exchange for having socialism shoved down our throats.
Actually it would be nice to have as many right-of-center people as possible in blue states refuse to fill out the census. I know it's a pipe dream, but most blue states have at least 40% red staters living amongst them. If you could get a significant number of these people to not fill out the census, it would overwhelm the census and hopefully lower the population count of blue states like California and New York which just might lead to a reduction in congressional districts and electoral votes.
Yeah, but can you put down that there are like 8 white people living in your household?
Exactly so. Right as usual.
Any benefit if you check "white" but also put down your ethnicity in "other"? What happens to the diversity system if Italians, Scots-Irish, Nordics, and old Americans assert a form of ethnic identity politics?
It's funny--you act incredibly aggrieved and victimized.
Steve, I think you are wrong on this. Really large scale inaccurate race choices would send a signal of civil disobedience. That's a useful signal to send.
Yup. Actually it's not gaming at all. If you want your tribe to get a fair share of the goodies, answer correctly. There are no goodies for "human", and emphatically no goodies at all for "American", so those answers will only lose points that could have gone to your own tribe.
What about identifying yourself as a minority that doesn't have a quota? Say you identified yourself as "Other" and put down "Australian aborigine." There is no quota to fill and it reduces the known percentage of whites relative to other groups.
Your analysis is right, Steve. All of these "protest by not saying you're white" just screws over whites.
Universities do not check your personal Census data. I don't know that it's even legal and if it is I doubt it universities would think to do it unless it becomes some massive problem. So I think pretending to be Hispanic (or whatever) in university admissions might work.
Yeah, but can you put down that there are like 8 white people living in your household?
Yes, is this technically illegal?
I read the "Adverse Impact" article on Wikipedia and now understand how this game works. Bummer. The best scam might be to bribe NAMs to put down white.
Universities do not check your personal Census data. I don't know that it's even legal and if it is I doubt it universities would think to do it unless it becomes some massive problem. So I think pretending to be Hispanic (or whatever) in university admissions might work.
Personal census information becomes available only after 72 years.
What about identifying yourself as a minority that doesn't have a quota? Say you identified yourself as "Other" and put down "Australian aborigine." There is no quota to fill and it reduces the known percentage of whites relative to other groups.
They'd probably be included in the Pacific Islander category, being similar to the inhabitants of such islands as the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
Peter
Anonymous
It's funny--you act incredibly aggrieved and victimized.
Racial spoils != grievance/victimhood. Steve's post is about the former. If you want to play tu quoque, at least get your vocabulary straight.
Of course, you can only play that silly game by holding whites to standards far higher than you do other groups.
PS I'm not white. There goes your shtick.
I only answered the number of people in the household. I am not going to lie, but race and ethnicity are none of the damned feds' business so I left those questions blank. No matter how I answer the questions, the profession race hustlers will still game the system, since that is ALL they do. So I choose to follow the Constitution.
Personal census information becomes available only after 72 years.
With all the Australian Aborigines on this board, I wonder whether the genealogists of the late 21st/early 22nd-Century will still understand the concept of "irony"?
Or even "humor"?
"For example, if you are a non-Hispanic white person who fills in his race as "Human" or "American," you have merely made the burden the government imposes on your family members via disparate impact lawsuits worse."
No, they base the quotas based off the protected class minorities. They don't subtract it from the total amount of whites.
Putting American in for race makes sense considering someone can select Japanese or Chinese for race. But the census's definition of race is wrong since they conflate it with ethnicity.
Writing American implies that one is patriotic and points out that the NAMs who do not consider themselves something else: alien quota hustlers.
I think white Americans should answer "white" and write in their predominant ethnicity (e.g. Italian, Greek, Slavic, Celtic, Ashkenazi Jewish etc.)under "Other."
Diversity sure is complicated.
I'm not following the problem with writing Other/American. Obv pretending to be a NAM makes no sense. That just increases the NAM share. But Other/American counts as a person, but not a NAM. Why does that change the final share of NAMs?
It may be that it;s a bad idea to reduce the White percentage at all, for example because it could affect political calculations as to whites' electoral value or encourage the rush to white minorityhood and discourage resistance to it. But it could just as well do the opposite.
Patrick said,
I think white Americans should answer "white" and write in their predominant ethnicity (e.g. Italian, Greek, Slavic, Celtic, Ashkenazi Jewish etc.)under "Other."
I was thinking this, too. Aside from the political, it would have been nice to have this information with some of my ancestors. All those nosy questions are so nice for us "Ancestor worshippers"!
We're going to keep it simple and put "Germanic, Celtic" for myself and for my husband add "Amerindian" to the other two.
I haven't opened our envelope, yet, but I should find out tomorrow the sex of my unborn child. I wonder if I can add him somehow. The website says they will start sending out census worker in the late Spring-early Summer which is just before I'm due.
Point taken, but I don't want them asking in the first place. I believe in judging people as individuals. I don't want to WIN at a game I don't believe in playing in the first place.
Also, I don't want to be in the same racial group as George W.Bush and Whiskey. I'm gonna black it up.
"However, because you checked "Guamanian or Chamorro" on your Census form, many "Guamanian or Chamorro" quotas will be larger. So, you and your relatives (assuming they are not Guamanian or Chamorro) lose."
No, whatever you (one person) choose to report on a census card will be statistically insignificant. It won't make a difference either way.
However ... pretty much anyone can say they are Hispanic in a job interview or university application and get away with it. Hispanic doesn't mean you speak Spanish, and doesn't mean a specific racial background.
If European-Americans as a group wanted to ensure that 'Hispanic' was meaningless, they could all start saying that they were Hispanic on job, school, grant, and so on applications where there is any form of Affirmative Action for Hispanics. It would completely swamp 'real' Hispanics.
I wrote in American for the four people in my family. They will figure out a way to hand out the racial goodies no matter what. Case in point, Seattle has 7% blacks, but we have a black school superintendent, just got rid of a black county head, and they renamed the county after MLK because that's the PC thing to do.
Writing in American is a useful protest vote. If enough people did it, the authorities would have to figure out why people don't want to identify as "white". If not enough people do it, it's a cheap thrill for those that do.
P.S. "white" - what a B.S. racial category. Am I really made of the same stuff as Irish and Italians? Now that's offensive.
Steve,
The Census wants to know not only your race, but how financially successful you are.
Am I a census cynic to think there is no ulterior motive when asked whether our home is paid for or has a mortgage, but no attempt is made to inquire *how* it was paid for? Our government doesn't care whether we are good at managing our finances, have long time horizons, resist impulse shopping, or simply rob banks.
Imagine a Hollywood movie today with a bureaucrat asking a sympathetic character, "What's your race? You own anything, I mean anything tangible?"
What's to be done for our hero?
The census form appears to be a disparate impact questionnaire.
Yeah, but can you put down that there are like 8 white people living in your household?
Supposedly when you put down that large a number they're more likely to send a census worker by - they might even be required to. They'll be especially suspicious if you live in an apartment or condo (though maybe less so if you put down 8 Hispanic people). If you want to drive up white numbers put down 6 and you'll probably avoid a visit.
I've been thinking that the racial civil disobedience is counterproductive and stupid, too. It's all about assigning goodies, and any tactic that reduces the "White" count is a huge mistake.
A question, though: if 70% of the population marks "White" then the population is counted as 70% white. But what if 60% mark White and the other 10% mark English, Italian, or some other ethnicity? Since the form doesn't actually give whites the option of a specific ethnicity would those 10% get taken out of the share of jobs that Whites "deserve"?
You're right, and I think there's only one way for whites to game the census back in our favor - claim more members of your household than you actually have. Add a roommate or two, some adult children or grandchildren, or claim to have a brother or sister (and their spouses) who are staying with you "temporarily." Adult white co-occupants would be best, since they'll be counted as part of the workforce.
It's interesting that every other "race" is identified by their location of origin - "Japanese," "Cuban, "American Indian," but people of European are identified only as "White," and are given no option of identifying their country (or even continent) of origin. The Census Bureau has made ti quie clear they aren't interested in hearing anything extra from "whites." Wish the IRS felt the same way.
Who is John Galt?
On the census, they ask if you are of hispanic origin. I don't like that because it makes hispanic the center of gravity of American demographics. This is at odds with our history which clearly has an Anglosphere core.
If a Polish kid is born in Venezuela and immigrates to the USA, he is considered hispanic. But if that same kid is born in the USA, he is considered a non-hispanic white.
In both cases, the individual is defined by whether or not he has any links to hispanic culture.
The only "hispanic" thing about the first example is that spanish might be his first language even though he is of Polish origin. In the second example, the Polish kid's first language is English and he is clearly a product of the Anglosphere.
Therefore, why don't they base peoples' cultural identity on whether or not they are anglo, which really means whether or not they are a product of the Anglosphere?
All native born people in the USA would be classified as anglo-white or anglo-black or whatever is appropriate since English is their first language and they are culturally part of the Anglosphere.
By using this methodology, 'anglo' becomes the center of gravity in determining a person's cultural background. This is appropriate given our rich history as an offshoot of Great Britain, not Spain.
It also lessens the political influence of the term hispanic because new immigrants from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Russia, Germany and France would all be classed as non-anglo white or non-anglo black, etc., and the term hispanic would not be used.
This also means that current hispanics who are born in the USA would be classified as anglo-white, anglo-black, etc. Ethnic Cubans born in the USA are English speakers and products of the Anglosphere. Sure they might speak Spanish at home with their immigrant parents, but don't some Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, Chinese and others do the same?
If the Russians, Italians and others are assumed to have assimilated, why can't the Cubans and Mexicans born here be considered part of Anglo culture as well? Therefore, it makes sense that they should be classified as anglo.
The people who would be opposed to this are the La Raza types because overnight they would no longer have a constituency.
Hey, isn't it possible to change last names? We should all Hispanicize our last names, mark ourselves as Hispanic on the census, and get affirmative action.
So, Stevo Sailer would be Steve Sailerez.
John Smith would be Juan Smithez.
Jared Taylor would be Jared Tayloria.
Paul Gottfried would be Pablo Gottfriedieto.
Census Is For Counting Not Prying
The constitutional requirement for the Census is found in Article. I. Section. 2. Paragraph. 3. "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."
The purpose of the Census is that of counting the US population in order to apportion among the states the number of representatives in the US House of Representatives. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less.
There is nothing in the Constitution requiring or even suggesting questions regarding race, ethnicity, whether one owns or rents his or her home, income status, disability status, education, or anything of the sort. The only purpose of the Census is to count the US population. Anything beyond that is nothing more than an intrusive government prying and snooping into our lives: something the federal government is doing with greater and greater frequency and intensity these days.
...
In the original Census of 1790, the information requested was simply the number of persons in each household and the name of the head of each family. That’s it. Accordingly, when I filled out my Census form earlier this week, the only information I provided was my name (as the head of my household) and the number of people living in my home. The rest of it I left blank.
Furthermore, the idea that the information gathered about us via the unconstitutional and invasive Census form will not be shared with anyone is so ludicrous it is laughable. The federal government passes around virtually everything it learns about us to any number of departments and agencies. Does anyone really believe that all the information obtained with this unconstitutional Census form will be locked away in a vault somewhere, never to be used or shared? What a crock! Why, the federal government cannot even ensure that its own employees will abide by its own rules.
...
By the way, should a Census worker come to my home and demand that I answer the questions I left blank, I will simply plead my 5th Amendment/Miranda rights to "remain silent." What are they going to say to that? ...
@ddvveerti: "Hey, isn't it possible to change last names? We should all Hispanicize our last names, mark ourselves as Hispanic on the census, and get affirmative action."
There's no need to make your last name Spanish-sounding. Hispanic doesn't mean you have a Spanish-sounding last name, or that you are Spanish or Mestizo, or that you speak Spanish.
Marking yourself as Hispanic on a census won't get *you* affirmative action - that's not how the census works.
Marking yourself as Hispanic for a job or a university admission or Gates millennial scholarship can make a difference for *you*, though.
uh-oh, Sailer-Bait!!!
--> http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/using-quotas-to-raise-the-glass-ceiling/
Quotas for women in upper management.
"In the original Census of 1790, the information requested was simply the number of persons in each household and the name of the head of each family. That’s it."
This is not entirely correct. It did ask about the numbers of free males 16 or older vs under 16, the number of females, the number of slaves, and it also listed each person's race. Other questions were gradually added to the Census through 2000. The 2010 Census will actually be the shortest Census form since the early 19th century.
James Madison, serving in Congress in 1790, proposed unsuccessfully that the Census also list whether people were employed in agricultural, commercial, or manufacturing work. In 1800, the American Philosophical Society, under its president Thomas Jefferson, again proposed that the Census gather information about the employment characteristics of the U.S. population. Both of these proposals were rejected, with many people raising the same objections to government invasiveness that some raise today.
One little mentioned fact about the Census is that U.S. citizens residing in foreign countries, unless they are federal employees or their dependents (primarily military and state department employees), are generally not counted in the Census at all.
For example, some people think that Utah lost out on having an additional congressman following the 2000 Census because so many of its young people were living out of state serving as Mormon missionaries. Those serving in the U.S. would have been counted in the state where they were serving, while those serving overseas were not counted at all (provided that their families did not erroneously list them as living at home). Retired people living in Mexico or elsewhere or individuals employed by private businesses in other countries were also left out of the Census.
There were some attempts in the past to encourage Americans to voluntarily complete an overseas Census form, but obviously they were not legally required to do so, and the attempts were not very successful. These attempts were abandoned after 1980. I would not be surprised if Barack Obama and his mother were not included in the 1970 Census when they were living in Indonesia.
Wasn't it Joseph Sobran who wrote, "Diversity is legalized discrimination against white men"?
Speaking of ancestry, Footnote.com is allowing free access to all the US Census records they have online for free, for a limited time.
It seems the best approach for whites and mostly-whites is to put white on the census form, but when applying for a job claim to be a member of a privileged minority group such as black or Hispanic. Since your putative employer wants to increase their non-white quota, they're unlikely to investigate your claim too hard.
“In general, the people who benefit from disparate impact / affirmative action have spent a lot more time thinking about how to rig the system in their favor than you have about how to game it in yours.”
You can say that again. The simple Census questionnaire yields only three bits of information.
1. How many people live in each political jurisdiction
2. What their race and thnicity is
3. Whether they own the own homes.
Filling out mine, it felt like my first date with a Jewish girl. “So do you rent or do you own?” I was expecting the next question to ask if I was a dentist.
From this bare sketch of the population the government is only able to a) allocate legislative representation and Federal aid by population, and b) allocate other privileges by race and ethnicity.
Combine data from 2 and 3, and you can figure home ownership by race and ethnicity. The attempt to remedy inequalities in these rates helped produce the worst purely financial catastrophe in 75 years.
Thirty years ago, I was involved in a government consulting project that proposed combining the results of detailed Census questionnaires with detailed tax filings. The idea was to unite, at the individual level, Census data on characteristics of families with IRS data on their behavior, income, savings, consumption patterns and so forth. The combination would have been an economist’s, marketer’s and statistician’s dream, making it possible to run regressions at the highly granular level of families, rather than by aggregations of people.
No go. Both individual files were to be ‘masked’ somehow, that is, not allowing anyone to identify the actual individuals involved. But both IRS and Census said no, they could not allow their data to be released outside their agencies in any other form than their own statistical summaries. The bureaucrats responsible for these collections are actually super-conscientious about possible misuses of their data. But they cannot stop the politicians from ordering the collection of data that serves the politicians’ purposes.
Imagine a Hollywood movie today with a bureaucrat asking a sympathetic character, "What's your race? You own anything, I mean anything tangible?"
LOL, but scary...
The law requires that you identify yourself and give the number of persons in the household when responding to the census.
That is all.
Everything else on that form is beyond the law.
Just answer the number of persons living in the residence, you know the U.S. Constitutional requirement. Everything else is intrusion.
My friend's dad joked that he used to put "American" down to tick off the census until he realized that the only people who did that were other white men. He said didn't want them to know his political beliefs as well, LOL.
In other news, it sure is hard to figure out the race of the Philly Flash Mob from published reports. This is a crowd of hundreds that beat people silly and knocked out teeth, all of the same race, and it's unmentionable. But let some 16 year old play a stupid prank that hurt some black people's feelings, and it's jail time.
here are the questions from the original census.
yes, it does ask about race: white or other. all of you who think this race business is new should think again.
some ppl elsewhere have mentioned the 4th amendment as reason not to fill out the census. Morales v. Daley determined that it's not a valid reason.
finally, why on earth would you ever want to diminish the numbers of your own group on something like this? as steve says, you only benefit the minorities by doing so. but wait, i am a minority so ... please don't be counted!
Sad American said...
On the census, they ask if you are of hispanic origin. I don't like that because it makes hispanic the center of gravity of American demographics.
--------
I'm assuming they ask it this way because, when given a choice between "Hispanic" and "White", about half of Latinos will say they are white. As one Latino bureaucrat told me once when I asked him, politely why a particular man was called "white" when he was largely Indian (and clear descriptiveness was in order), "Latinos are of the white race, but Hispanic ethnicity".
He took this question of mine to mean I was questioning the "whiteness" of Latinos and he didn't appreciate it one bit.
Steve has mentioned this before and I got to witness it first-hand.
The funny thing is that whites and Asians are the most likely to actually comply with the census and send the dang thing in. So, as percentages in the initial count, you get whites and Asians slightly overrepresented, and blacks and hispanics underrepresented. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall when the initial count comes in? All of the handwringing and behavior excusing would be pretty amusing.
Steve is probably right, however I refused to be categorized as "Non-Hispanic White". I'm white, damn it. Ant the most significant thing about my racial category is NOT that I am NOT hispanic.
"Chief Seattle said...
Writing in American is a useful protest vote. If enough people did it, the authorities would have to figure out why people don't want to identify as "white". If not enough people do it, it's a cheap thrill for those that do."
Actually I do want to identify as "white", but I find I am not so keen on the title "American".
Regarding the other questions on the census, does anyone know of some web-sites that discuss, from a legal point of view, what we can get away with - i.e., how do we answer as few of the questions as possible within the letter of the law? Not the law as we think it ought to be, but the law as it is. Any ideas?
Notice that despite the ever expanding list -- breaking out each major Asian national group -- they still do not break out "Jewish". Yet that's a pretty clearly racially and culturally distinct group.
Nor for that matter "Arabs" or "Persian" ... nothing until you actually get to the sub-continent. And even there since it's listed "Asian Indian" i'm not sure how many Pakistanis or Bangladeshis are going to use it -- even though it's clearly the intended racial category. (Hmm, come to think of it a friend of mine's in this category, i'll ask him what he's going to do.)
It strikes me the only justification here is sociological data collection. And if that's what you're doing then you should offer all the obvious "national origin" choices out there as racial options. Ask religion too, both as cultural and practicing. And immigration generation. If we're getting data, let's get good data.
Steve, I think you are wrong on this. Really large scale inaccurate race choices would send a signal of civil disobedience. That's a useful signal to send.
Sending a useful signal of civil disobedience doesn't have to be coupled to filling in, for example, "Native American" when your family's been here since the 1600s.
How about just putting "White, AKA Second Class Citizen" or something?
Hey, isn't it possible to change last names? We should all Hispanicize our last names, mark ourselves as Hispanic on the census, and get affirmative action.
So, Stevo Sailer would be Steve Sailerez.
John Smith would be Juan Smithez.
Jared Taylor would be Jared Tayloria.
Paul Gottfried would be Pablo Gottfriedieto.
Just thinking out loud, but haven't liberals disarmed themselves of their best weapon against this gambit? You know, because they all say race is a social construct? Hard to tell someone who changes his social construct to something else that he isn't now as "disadvantaged" as all the other social constructs.
The Feds do this for housing NAMs. From HUD "Housing Goals '96 - '09" , FHFA (the agency that regulates Fannie and Freddie) page 4:
"The third home purchase goal will
target borrowers who reside in low-income areas (tract income not greater than 80
percent of the area median income) and below median-income borrowers in high-
minority, moderate-income tracts (borrower’s income is no greater than the area median
income, tract population is at least 30 percent minority and tract median income is less
than the area median income)."
I've only glanced through the form, which was addressed to "Resident." I thought this Census was going to be anonymous, and that all they wanted was a body count. Do they really think they're going to get these illegals (here in the Bronx) to fill out this form with names and their telephone numbers? I thought the point was to make the form illegal-friendly.
On the same day, accompanying the Census form, and preaching its virtues, I received a promotion piece from my State Senator. It includes the photo of a very black man with heavy Negroid features, a white woman (blonde, of course), and a mixed race child. All smiling and happy! Is this supposed to illustrate the varieties of races that might be in a given household? Which box would they check for the kid?
... Nor for that matter "Arabs" or "Persian"
Come to think of it, why not these categories? Which categories would they be in on this Census form? Considering all the Arabs that are now here, how will they be counted? We also have a substantial population of Iranians.
Assuming Steve is right, what should mixed race (say white and Asian, seemingly the most common) put down? I've got a slew of them living in my house.
Census ought to be called noncensus.
Post a Comment