Handy, your coming over?
Should I stock some beer or milk?
Make sure you check the household archives before you ask me any questions.
Teacher, my red crayon tastes funny – Ralph Wiggum
How much can a form possibly be worth? Do you mean in terms of the value of the information to the government and, eventually, the community? I can’t imagine the ink on paper is worth much more than a penny.
Incidentally, I haven’t gotten mine yet.
Oh fer cryin’ out loud, what’s the big friggin’ deal? They asked and I answered: White/Japanese.
As for what race you CONSIDER yourself to be: if asked, I say I am Caucasian,that is the race I most identify with. My friend James, who is also half white, half Japanese, would answer differently. He considers himself Japanese. He was raised with his Japanese mother, I was raised with Caucasian parents. It’s all a state of mind.
<pedantry>Shouldn’t that be “super-category”?</pendatry>
Two admissions:
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We got the long form, like ShadowFox. It was fun to fill it in for about the first half of the first person, then it got tiresome, leading to
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We lied. We invented obscure ethnicities for each of us and our children and inflated our income (it only went up to a million dollars a year, so we couldn’t stretch it too much).
Now I suppose we will deserve whatever lunacy the bureaucrats at the Census Bureau decide to do with it.
“You have no choice but to be impressed.”
Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan
Doubt and Certainty
Answer however you wish, the correct answer is human, however, as ‘race’ based on ethnicity is a political fabrication. There is no valid reason for asking 'race’on the census either outside of political considerations. Fill in the number in your household and leave the rest blank if you want, like everything else, despite their best intentions, it’ll all be information eventually used to carry out someone’s agenda shrug I wouldn’t give them your phone number though.
All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.
Has anyone thought that there are other reasons for the census to ask race? Perhaps when Funk & Wagnall’s wants to update the encyclopedia it might be a little easier to look up racial demographics from the 2000 Census report instead of running their own census and making up numbers? Maybe when a grad student wants to write a paper on black racial distributions in Ohio from 1970-2000, it might be nice to be able to look up how many black (African-Amercian… whatever) people were living in Ohio in the year 2000? Perhaps when the Center for Disease Control wants to determine the percentage amount of caucasians in New York who have herpes vs. the percentage amount of hispanics in NY with herpes, it’ll help to know how many caucasian/hispanic people live in New York? There’s a chance that when the ACLU is investigating the number of traffic tickets given to whites versus blacks in Twin Oaks, it’ll help to know how many white and black people live in or commute through Glen Oaks?
Hey, it’s your census form so do what you want. As I said, your answer of “human” will go into the same location as if you wrote “Klingon” or “Vampyre Lord of the Nynth Circle”. But a nation census is an excellent chance to gain racial demographic information for any number of academic or legal purposes that have nothing to do with the evil Feds wanting to know what color your mom and dad were.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Jophiel, you’re right that those might be legitimate uses for the information. Maybe.
When they send me a completely anonymous form, I’ll consider it. Maybe
-Melin
Voted Best Moderator (Emeritus)
Biggirl. Just stock some paper & pencils.
ReservoirDog, I’m not sure exactly but I think each completed form is worth around $1000 because it determines what money your city & your schools get.
I completed tons of job applications, school applications, etc etc, and it was no big thing to say ‘white.’ Most of the time though, ‘white’ was the last choice.
Shirley, make sure you let us know what Dave Barry says and/or when that letter gets into his column.
is PurpleCrackwhore considered a race?
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
Kat, I will. He’s actually pretty good about writing back to people, or maybe it’s just me. 
They run a commerical about a barn burning down cause people didn’t do their Census forms properly so their local fire department didn’t get better equipment…