What is the legal definition of race?
And, can I put down African American on Gov. documents if my skin is white?
As far as I know, the only “racial” identification that is subject to a legal definition is membership in a Native community (American Indian, Alaskan Native, Inuit, Hawai’ian). Someone could break the law by claiming to be Apache to the government when they are not, for instance.
For most purposes, race is a self-identified attribute in the US. We’ve been over this a number of times in the past, and a search will pull up identical threads to this one. Membership in Native American tribes is controlled by the tribe, but if you wanted to apply to a University, for example, and claim you were [insert race here], most would take you at your word. If you wanted to get a cut of casino profits, that would be a different story-- you’d have to convice the tribe that you were a member.
I seem to remember the last census form simply saying something to the effect of, “List which race(s) you consider yourself to be.” This definition seems to be based on self-reporting and rather arbitrary. Sometimes it gets abused; I’ve heard a few stories about somebody with no known African ancestors outside of paleontology deciding to claim they are black in the hopes of qualifying for some sort of affermative action, usually in college admissions. I think some institutions have come up with their own definitions of race in efforts to weed out problems of self-reporting, quite understandably. As near as I can tell, our system of defining race is something of a patchwork and a little bit arbitrary.
You’d think these days they could come up with a more rigorous way to define race… trouble is, a strict DNA and ancestory definition would probably turn our usual ideas about race upside down.
This column by Cecil Adams may be of interest. What percentage of black parentage do you need to be considered black?
Thank you for your answers. I have been trying to organize a group in my school to form an anti-racism movement. We are planning on putting down all different races on our drivers license, even though most would call us white. Our point will be that racism is stupid because there is no technical race, you are whatever you wan’t to be. We are getting our ‘black’ friends to put that they are caucasion or hispanic. I know it sounds like we are trying to cause trouble, but our intentions are good.
Absolutely correct, although it should be noted that the U.S. Census is pretty much 100% “self-reporting.” If there was any way it could be accomplished without self-reporting, it wouldn’t be necessary to send out forms to every household in the United States in the first place.
As a consequence, it is technically inaccurrate to state something like “X% of persons were African American as of the 2000 Census.” If you want to be anal, the proper way would be to write “X% of persons reported to be of African American descent as of the 2000 Census.” That doesn’t even get into the complications introduced by allowing people to check more than one race, either.
As mentioned, the only hard and fast definitions you’ll find are among American Indians. The Bureau of Indian Affairs issues Certificate Degree of Indian Blood cards (CDIB) which state “John Jones is 1/8 Cherokee” or something to that effect (I don’t have mine handy). I’m not entirely sure of the various ways in which a person “proves” their indian heritage, for me it was as simple as showing my great-grandmother was on the Chickasaw Dawes Roll. I also have Cherokee heritage, however that relative was not on the roll so I haven’t been able to prove it. There may be other ways of demonstrating heritage, but I don’t know what they are and I’m not particularly motivated to find out.
The various tribes each determine what “degree” of indian blood is necessary to be a citizen, and your CDIB card is your proof. I expect that for different programs, it may be sufficient to produce just a CDIB card, whereas for others you have to prove you are a citizen of a tribe. In an emergency, I was very nearly denied treatment in an indian hospital because I only had my tribal ID card, and not my CDIB card (overhearing the conversation, the doctor on duty thought it was ridiculous and treated me anyway). However, most federal programs for indians are managed by the tribes themselves (with BIA assistance and oversight, of course) so they determine the criteria, and that usually means you have to be a citizen, although sometimes not necessarily of their tribe.
Why does the US driver’s licence ask for ‘race’ details and in what way is it in any way relevant to your ability or right to drive?
(Don’t answer the second part of the above. You’ll gather it’s rhetorical; it isn’t relevant.)
I imagine it’s a holdover from days when it was considered another piece of identifying info, like height or eye color. It doesn’t relate to driving ability, of course, but rather to using the license as ID.
There is no general purpose U.S. drivers’ licenses (I think there are U.S. military driver’s licenses and the like) – only state drivers’ licenses. My Illinois driver’s license gives my height, weight, sex, and eye color, but has no racial descriptor. I have also had Michigan and Ohio driver’s licenses, and, to the best of my recollection, neither had a racial descriptor.
“Are no” not “is no.” I can’t stand that kind of mistake.
There is no such thing as a “US driver’s licence” [sic]. There are 50 equally legal driver’s licenses in the USA. Each state issues them, and each state determines what is on their individual license.
According to the public schools in Indianapolis, legal race corresponds to what race the kid looks like according to a school administrator. We have some racially-determined school districts in Indianapolis. If the kid is legally black, the kid goes to the nice township school. If the kid is legally not black, the kid goes to the underfunded and crappy city school. The not-black people with money have moved to places where race is not used to determine school district.
I was told flat-out that it was all up to the eyeball judgement of a school principal regarding what race a child was.
I made sure to buy a house outside of that area.