Just a quick suggestion on reforming modern institutional attitudes about race and, of course, a request for your opinions.
Race (if it even exists), is really only relevant to your physician (for the purposes of monitoring or diagnosing genetic health). Why should my college, employer or government even ask me what race I am. I know my ethnic heretage and am proud of it. It is part of my identity and I discuss and share it with anyone willing to listen but, what has that got to do with the aforementioned institutions? They never ask for my coat-of-arms or want to know if my ancestors were nobles or knights. Hey, let’s not be Anglo-centric here. “So, Mr. Fukumitsu, are you sure none of your ancestors were samurai? It’s important that we at the Census Bureau have accurate data on this. What about a Shogunate?”
This is what I propose. Let’s start on a college campus, I should be back in school within a year and I intend to do this. Go to the registrar’s office with a few dozen of your closest friends, and have your records amended to correct your race to . . . whatever. Almost any choice is a valid one. Let’s see . . . almost everyone in the US has at least a little European ancestry so “white” is OK and the European continent’s distinction as a seperate land-mass isn’t universally accepted so “Asian” is just as good. You were born in America, AND both your parents were too? Sounds “Native American” to me. Last I heard, the big paleo-anthropological debate on where man evolved was between South Africa vs. North Africa. So, I guess we’re all “African” too.
Find more people to do this EVERY SEMESTER and when the administration complains, tell them how irrelevant you consider race to be. Tell them that when institutions stop caring about race and tracking how many of what races enroll in what numbers, we can finally be judged on what we acomplish and who we are and not where “our people” come from. If there is no recorded “race” statistic. We can’t very well keep bugging you people about it. If the logic of our arguments doesn’t convince them, maybe the logistics of changing these records constantly will. Also, the changes could be targeted with particular values and times in order to render data collected in certain surveys compromised or to adulterated to be usefull at all.
The problem with ideas like this is that they disregard the fact that the real world recognises and distinguishes between races. Wrongly of course IMHO, but that’s the way life is - and it isn’t going to change just because some record-keepers decide it’s not politically correct to make that distinction anymore.
Say for example that a disproportionate percentage of students identified as black suddenly begin dropping out of a university. Obviously, there is some sort of problem at that university. But if the university isn’t keeping accurate racial statistics, it won’t recognise the problem - and by extension won’t be able to do anything to solve it.
Until people become genuinely color-blind, it just isn’t practical or logical for data to be.
The government isn’t doing race counting for the joy of having people complain that they are counting races. They are counting races (and identifying locations of housing and levels of wages etc.) because people have been denied housing or jobs (or promotions) based on how other people viewed tham. When enough people are discriminated against, the government uses its statistical abstracts to help identify whether EEOC complaints are genuine. If everyone who decided that the government should ignore race put themselves down as one single race, we would still see a lot of people claiming a distinctive identity–because large numbers of those groups perceive that they are discriminated against.
That is why the number of racial/ethnic groups on the census form has actually been increasing.
I am a product of the post civil rights era. By the time I went to school we were taught that racism is wrong. Couple this with Christian values and I came out to be completely unbiased towards race and religion. This is why I say “post civil rights era”. For me the changes made worked. However, this gets me into alot of trouble. Because I don’t see anything negative about the fact of anyones race I also don’t see anything positive or special. We are all equal. So when I, being completely neutral on the issue, do not recognize the whinning of race based arguments I am labeled a bigot. Now I understand that there are alot of people who need to hear the race based arguments but when you make these arguments to me I see it as racist on your part. I don’t make race distinction on my own but some would force me to do this by asking to support affirmative action or to not use a particular word that you believe to be derogatory of your race. If you force me to accept your arguments then I have taken a step backwards by singling out you race as more or less important on any particular issue.
People will never become “color-blind” while respected institutions, like universities, and powerfull instituions, like governments, keep asserting that race is a relevant issue.
Race, i.e., are you White or Irish . . .
race, i.e., are you White or Jewish. . .
race, i.e., are you White or Italian . . .
hasn’t mattered in decades. But then, the census doesn’t discern between Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans. Colleges don’t care if Anglos outnumber Gauls or Castillians outnumber Meso-Americans.
The fact that these power structures make the distinction causes many people to do so by default, even when they normally wouldn’t give it another thought.
I said this in another thread on ‘Race’: Show me some sort of scientific proof of the existence of race… That’s the challenge. Genus? Sure, thats there, Species? Yep, Order? Top o’ the list, Family? Check! Race? … Race? (no, it’s not an echo…)
Second, good idea about challenging the ‘Race’ thing, although my suggestion would be ‘Human’ as race. (or under race you could put “100 meter dash!” :+})
Interjection: AMEN portajon. The (as you so eloquently put it;-)“Post Civil Rights” generation is slowly moving the old, codgerly race-worriers out of the picture. As this occurs, I truly hope that people will stop taking minor regional and chemical differences (by chemical, I intone melanin, primarily) so damned seriously. Bigotry usually comes from jealousy. So by biblical (I’m pretty sure most religions have this)definition it is among the more deadly sins known to man. (iokane anyone?)(I’ve spent the last few years building up an immunity to bigotry…)
portajon, Tr8rJake, and Elastiity, do you seriously believe that people are denied housing or jobs because some university asks for your self-definition on a placement form? Do you think that James Byrd Jr. was dragged to death as a protest against filling out forms to enter college?
I think the whole race thing on the census forms in the US is out of control. Now that new genetic evidence points to the fact that there are “really” no such definitions of “race”; what is stopping our government from ending the racial divisions with words?
Our tragedy on 9.11 is proof that we are all Americans. Can we pick it up and go from there? Can we start a petition to bring this issue/ idea to the masses? This would solidify our national identity. Hell, we’ve been around for 225 years, and we are strong together, so why the dividing definitions? I think it may be a vestige of our being the “little kid” compared to the Europeans (those ancient ones!). I think we can use 9.11 as a springboard for rising up, overcoming, and coming together as one people, Americans.
All my life people have asked me what I am…what is my decent, etc… (That’s Buffalo for you…) I always said “American.” Almost always the person responded “Oh, what tribe?” And I’d say American, USA, where are you from?
I served 8 long years in the military and at this present time, YES some mental midgets still believe that skin color and ethnic background matters. When a soldier goes before a promotion board he / she is scrutinized on a lot of things. However a brown soldier appearing before a predominantly brown Promotion board ( its a panel of Non-Commissioned Officers: Sgt. Major, and all the 1st Sgts.) and performs abismally and a creamy soldier goes before the same board and performs in a like manner, 9 out of 10 times the brown guy gets passed whilst the non-brown guy fails. (You fail, no promotion) The military is probably the most segregated organization I have ever seen.
Denied the right to vote? by the little fill in the blank on ballots? How do they do this? Do the volunteer ballot counters have instructions to toss out certain ‘races’ ballots? Inquiring minds want to know. Not to mention the fact that Indiana never acknowledged MY vote! I distinctly voted for Nader. Apparently not a single soul in Indiana voted for Ralphie. And I have been known to either lie blatently on the ‘Ethnic Background’ section (I fill out a different one each time.) (!!!) Maybe I filled out the one that THEY were screening for! Those filthy Republican majority dogs!
Interesting, Erasticity. You claim that you know that racism is being promulgated today, based on visual clues, yet you believe that eliminating a check box on a statistical form will eliminate racism. I’d love to hear how that will work.
Tommy, Show me where I said that removing a check box will stop ‘Racism’. The conclusion that you drew from my previous posts is…confusing. I see a bit of sarcasm over the ballot thing, and a bit of “visual clueing”, but…Nope. Can’t find where I stated that ridiculous drivel you ascribed to me. My only point in persuing this is that perhaps if we as an Order/Genus/Family of creature stop seeing these distinguishing labels thrown in our faces every stinking day, then maybe, just maybe we’ll eventually forget about it as truly irrelevant.
You’re being more than disingenuous, Erasticity. The OP was specific about messing with data collection forms (that can be informally identified as “check boxes”), and your first post agreed with that sentiment. It’s nice that you understand that there is no biological underpinning for the concept of race, but you went out of your way to post an unsubstantiated anecdote regarding racism. I simply put the thoughts of your two posts together.
I did not even address the fairly silly notion that some younger generation is going to push “codgerly race-worriers” out. I see quite a few kids indulging in race baiting today–based strictly on visual clues.
Tomn- I agreed with the premise of challenging the race issue. Read it, it’s at the top. And, how did I go "out of my way to post an unsubstantiated anecdote "? It was in response to your previous accusation. No, I did not state whether or not I “seriously believe that people are denied housing or jobs because some university asks for your self-definition on a placement form” (besides, the OP was concerned with any form that asks for this info) but in response, YES I do believe it happens, a lot less now than in the 60’s to be sure. Maybe in another few generations it won’t. And the statement concerning “Codgers” was an attempt at reference; After the bombing of Pearl Harbor the American sentiment toward Orientals living in the US got really ugly. Deportations almost occurred,and the sentiment remained for a Long time after. Here we have now the WTC. Anti turban, head wrap and dark skin sentiments are by and large drastically less substantial than the anti-‘slanty eye’d’ sentiment of 50+ years earlier. Couple that with the population growth and you’ve got at least marginal progress. As a species I mean.
