# Race: What is it good for? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 24, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530 "2009-03-24T00:14:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/21 "2009-03-24T11:40:11Z")
[Anwar Sadat is white](http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0410/images/adams/anwar_sadat_drum.jpg). [Alicia Keys is black](http://www.freshnews.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/alicia-keys.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/22 "2009-03-24T13:06:29Z")
I could be wrong, but the us gov started collecting race data just for the purpose of discriminating. Everytime I see the gov collecting race data I figure it “can” be used for bad purposes, therefore it should not be collected. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/23 "2009-03-24T13:20:54Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > This sort of racial classification tells us nothing, about anything. That’s not quite true. It tells us something about the people doing the classification. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/24 "2009-03-24T13:25:46Z")
LOL! “Asian” as a race? Yeah, Indians have soooooo much more in common with Japanese than with the Arabs and Persians. I mean, look at the color of their skin and face structure! Wait, they’re totally different from the Japanese. What were they smoking (the pollsters, not the Indians.) ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/25 "2009-03-24T14:12:10Z")
Beyond collecting data to test for discrimination, I think they also use it to see if certain races do better on tests and get better grades and stuff. But yeah, the whole idea of race is silly. I usually just put “other” or “none” if possible. I don’t often put African American, but we’re all from Africa ultimately, so that one is valid, too. I bet most Americans are mixed enough to where we can legitimately claim any “race”, so long as we nix the requirement that it be “predominant”. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/26 "2009-03-24T16:18:49Z")
> [@Qwisp](#): > > But are mid-easterners technically white? If they think they are( and I have no idea what they consider themselves) that is all that matters and they are white. It doesn’t matter what they consider themselves. As far as the US government is concerned for the purposes of this form, they’re white. My question would be about this category: > [@](#): > > American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment. What if the person in question has origins in the original peoples of North and South America but doesn’t maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment? There also doesn’t seem to be a category that Central Asians fit in. ---
**Author:** ![Qwisp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qwisp/32/397_2.png) [@Qwisp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwisp)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/27 "2009-03-24T16:30:22Z")
So according to the form you could be full blooded Inuit , but if you lived in New Jersey by yourself you are white??I still say mess with them and check all the race boxes. In a perfect world no one would see race just character, to paraphrase MLK. The racial identifiers in this case seem next to useless. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/28 "2009-03-24T16:53:29Z")
Yeah tick all or none of them. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/29 "2009-03-24T17:16:02Z")
> [@Qwisp](#): > > So according to the form you could be full blooded Inuit , but if you lived in New Jersey by yourself you are white?? No, you wouldn’t be white because you wouldn’t be “A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.” I don’t know what you would be. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/30 "2009-03-24T17:31:39Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Knowing who to bet on‚ and not bet on, in marathons. And airline hostage situations, of course. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/31 "2009-03-24T17:54:34Z")
Based on what you quoted in the OP, there doesn’t seem to be a legal requirement for you to report your race. I would write in “decline to answer” and sign and return that. Don’t fill in answers you honestly believe to be false, that may be perjury. I am not a lawyer and probably have no idea what I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/32 "2009-03-24T18:02:35Z")
But asking whether North Africans or South Asians are really white misses the point, which is the history of race in America. And the racial groups were black, white, or indian, or some mixture thereof. The few Indian Indians, or Chinese, or Middle Easterners didn’t matter, they were miscellaneous, because there just weren’t enough of them to notice. Of course, what race someone was assigned to was only partly dependent on ancestry, a person with 7/8th European ancestry could be classified as black, and so on. People realized that you could be of mixed race, but didn’t worry about edge cases because the ancestry of people in the Americas was almost invariably either Western European, Sub-Saharan African, or Native American. They didn’t worry about why a Somali was black but an Egyptian was white, or why both Pakistanis and Koreans are Asian. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/33 "2009-03-24T18:07:32Z")
> [@Qwisp](#): > > I still say mess with them and check all the race boxes. In a perfect world no one would see race just character, to paraphrase MLK. The racial identifiers in this case seem next to useless. So, we live in a perfect world, now? I am not excited about the survey as described in the OP and I will not try to justify that particular one. However, if the government stopped tracking such matters, the discrimination that exists would continue, we would simply have less an ability to recognize it or address it. This is the dilemma that France is facing, as noted above. The French have been fairly rigorous in their adherence to latter two words in their old slogan, _Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité_, to the point where the government refused to even recognize various ethnic groups as distinct. Yet, with the changes in population, there, there have been any number of disturbances that were ethnically based in the last few years–including riots by and riots against different groups. In order to know how to address the issues, some people in their government are considering trying to track just what sort of groups they actually have and who comprises the membership. As to messing with the surveys, currently it appears that self-identification actually tends to work pretty well. For every rebel fiercely checking “all” or “none,” there are several thousand people checking the boxes that indicate the group with which they are most clearly identified. I’m sure that many such surveys are flawed and some are hopelessly compromised, but I suspect that they provide a better service, in aggregate, that the rather naive view that if the government pretended that there were no groups, then all the problems of those groups, whether inflicted or from happenstance, would go away. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/34 "2009-03-24T18:28:06Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > They didn’t worry about why a Somali was black but an Egyptian was white, or why both Pakistanis and Koreans are Asian. Who is “they”? I’ve never lumped South Asian even remotely in the same race as East Asians. That category is truly a new designation for me. I’ve often seen the similarities, if not a gradient, between South Asians, and Semitic, and white Caucasians, but never w/r/t East Asians. (Even though there is somewhat of a gradient between South and East Asians when you look at Southeast Asians.) Lumping them together is genuinely amusing and bizarre to me. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/35 "2009-03-24T18:39:16Z")
From a reply I got from the local district, which included a 20+ page PDF from the Florida Department of Education - > [@](#): > > For more than 20 years, standards in the U. S. Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 have provided a common language to promote uniformity and comparability for data on race and ethnicity for the population groups specified in the Directive. They were developed in cooperation with federal agencies to provide consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the federal government. The development of data standards stemmed in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws. Data were needed to monitor equal access for populations that historically had experienced discrimination and differential treatment because of their race or ethnicity. The standards of Directive No. 15 have come under increasing criticism because the minimum categories do not reflect the increasing diversity of our nation’s population that has resulted primarily from growth in immigration and in interracial marriages. Because of this criticism, a comprehensive review was undertaken by the U. S. government. The result of this review is the adoption of standards for collecting and maintaining ethnicity and race data that will allow individuals to more accurately report their origins. Note: this change will be implemented during 2009-2010, but was generated from changes enacted in 2007: > [@](#): > > The revision of these federal standards requires changes to the collection and reporting of data in Florida. Changes in data collection have resulted in new elements being created to provide the data required by the OMB. To facilitate the reporting of accurate data, districts should begin to re-identify the race and ethnicity of all students and staff during the 2008-09 school year. Re-identification will provide the opportunity for students and staff to select more than one race and to report both their ethnicity and their race separately. If all individuals are not provided the opportunity to identify their race and ethnicity in a manner that is consistent, the data will not accurately reflect the diversity of the population. All changes must be implemented by fall 2009 reporting (school year 2009-10). and > [@](#): > > In 1977, the U. S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued standards for the collection and reporting of data on race and ethnicity in Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. The standards in this Directive have been used for two decades throughout the federal government for recordkeeping, collection, and presentation of data on race and Hispanic origin. > > In 1996, OMB conducted content and targeted tests in preparation for the 2000 Census. > > In the spring of 1997 OMB published a notice on research results and proposed decisions on changes to Directive No. 15. > > On October 30, 1997, OMB published the 1997 Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity (1997 Standards). > > On August 7, 2006, OMB published a Federal Register notice proposing changes to the U.S. Department of Education’s (USDE) data collection and reporting guidelines for race and ethnicity data that were consistent with the 1997 Standards. See [http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2006-3/080706d.pdf](http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2006-3/080706d.pdf). > > On October 19, 2007, OMB published a Federal Register notice of final changes to the USDE’s racial and ethnic data collection and reporting guidelines. See [http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.pdf](http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.pdf). > > States are required to report aggregated data using these new standards beginning with school year 2010-11. I’m reviewing the PDFs from the US Dept of Education in the links above to get more insight. There is actually some interesting reading there regarding comments that influenced their decisions. ---
**Author:** ![scule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@scule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scule)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/36 "2009-03-24T18:44:29Z")
Where I see the biggest question arising from this form is in what the specific purpose is in collecting this information. Ethnicity and racial data can be very valuable when gathering population statistics if there is a good rationale for it. I would imagine the people who commented on discrimination have it right, but the problem seems to be an inherent American one because of the history or slavery that left so many black people disadvantaged (yes that exists elsewhere, but most especially in the US). So if I were the OP I’d probably fill it in as best I could but try to contact the school board or whoever would know to find out what they’re hoping to do with the data. I think most people here are smart enough to know that the real divide between people throughout the world is based on wealth and not colour or culture, insofar as health and vital stats are concerned, so I’d be curious to know if they are gathering this to assist the government in seeing if there is some divide between ethnic groups in these areas. Of course, we all know that in the US there are definite differences in population health based strongly on ethnicity (or race, the terms are used so interchangeably) but I don’t think anyone seriously doubts that the root cause of these differences are economic rather than racial. It’s possible that using this form they can link to other data to paint a picture that might not be evident immediately. Still, I really think ethnicity is a dangerous tool to use for data analysis. I work on a survey on MSM and HIV (and other STDs) - risk behaviours, drug use, etc. We collect data on ethnicity, but it’s a write-in question so we get a myriad of possible options. Many respondents have answered 2, 3 or more ethnicities. How do you classify them? It’s goddamned hard, let me tell you. So I go home and ask my wife what ethnicity she would put down for that question and she says Canadian (we’re in Canada). Now she was born to Cantonese Chinese parents in Vietnam. She looks completely Chinese, or East Asian or whatever you want to call it, her family probably goes back a few thousand year of unmitigated local pairing with little mix from outside the area (simple farmers, really). But if I’m trying to formulate any sort of picture of ethnicity and how it relates to anything how do I use her response? She came here a long time ago and considers herself a “banana” (her term - looks Asian but acts white) and so identifies far more with Canadian culture than Chinese, so in that sense the effects that ethnicity has on a person for her are definitely more Canadian than Chinese. However, her parents are very Chinese, speak very little English, associate almost entirely within the Chinese community here and are definitely not the same as “typical” Canadians. And she is influenced by that. So what does that mean for data like this? It means it’s f\*#%@ing hard to come up with definitive answers to what value race has as an identifier. If your child is black, looks black, associates with black culture, but does not face any of the negative issues that might be facing black people otherwise then is it really useful to add him/her to the list when looking at the numbers? Hard to say. What if he’s white but you are poor and face many of the same problems new immigrants face in establishing themselves and building up capital and assets? Does he/she really fit, statistically, with the rest of the white folk who live comfortable middle or upper class lives? Probably not. Ultimate point (sorry for rambling) - race and ethnicity are brutally difficult things to classify because of how loaded with caveats everything about them is. I’d say answer that form as best you can, and try to find out what the ultimate point is. Maybe you can help them improve it in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/37 "2009-03-25T03:13:43Z")
Er, kids, you are often talking out of your asses. To answer the OP concinctly, using the precise definitions, we are stuck with the words of Edwin Starr, "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! (Say it again.). Yeah, he was talking as much about war as race, but you must remember the times when the two were enextricible. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/38 "2009-03-25T03:15:19Z")
Or whatever the effing spelling was. ETA: Say it again! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/39 "2009-03-25T03:19:55Z")
Er, have I EVER misspelled so MANY words in a row? Screw it! We are playing with both MODERN spelling and that of 2500 YEARS ago! (Er, great excuse, eh?) ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530/40 "2009-03-25T16:05:28Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Who is “they”? I’ve never lumped South Asian even remotely in the same race as East Asians. That category is truly a new designation for me. > > I’ve often seen the similarities, if not a gradient, between South Asians, and Semitic, and white Caucasians, but never w/r/t East Asians. (Even though there is somewhat of a gradient between South and East Asians when you look at Southeast Asians.) > > Lumping them together is genuinely amusing and bizarre to me. Yes, but that’s what the OP’s racial survey does. It calls “Asian” a race and declares that anyone from the Far East, SE Asia, or India is of the “Asian” race. Of course this is silly. The Himalayas form a barrier to the type of phenotypic cline you’re talking about, but that cline certainly exists in northern asia as you go from Russia to the Central Asia countries to Mongolia to the Russian Far East. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-what-is-it-good-for/490530.md?page=3)