April 11, 2010
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Okay, the census doesn't have an option for multiracial....?**
We're in 2010, right?
If I was a real A-hole I'd just write in the margins, "Race is a social construct," but I know better than to preach to federal officials.
**someone so graciously pointed out to me that I clearly didn't read the directions fully. I'm supposed to mark mulltiple races, not just one.
Comments (7)
Oh wow I didn't even notice that.. what the hell? Can you just check multiple boxes? o.O'
@devestatedangel - haha, whoops. I clearly haven't taken a close look at the paper yet (I only brushed over it when I pulled it out of my mailbox on Friday, given my work).
Yep, it says Mark one or more boxes.
Yay. Glad I could help
lol i wish it did though.
They aren't specific enough.
White
Are you Irish, German, Welsh, etc...
Black
Which tribes?
You know, if we're going to get all personal, we should get personal and know everything exactly as it is.
What is represented on the surface is far from what lingers beneath.
Their questioning is impure in itself. Why not settle for American and non-American?
That's all that matters.
@Colorsofthenight - the issue is they're asking for race, which is basically a socially constructed concept (black vs. white vs. ...Pacific Islander?? There's a reason later races derail into, basically, ethnicity).
But then, if you ask ethnicity, you miss other things. I'm ethnically German and Haitian (to be general), yet I identify as American.
Yet, due to our culture and history of race in America, saying whether you're black or not holds so much more meaning. Because that likely means identifying with the black culture, which is a result of isolation from the housing situation in the fifties that pretty much continued segregation in neighborhoods and drove most black neighborhoods into poverty.
And, of course, that history impacts now and the politicalized nature of race and the sense of a black community, etc.
It's a complicated mess that, while I understand why they're asking such confusing and diluted questions, you're absolutely right in that they, ultimately, aren't the questions we want to ask. Of course, like (for example) switching to the metric system, we can't just shift from one to the other.
@thirst2 - It doesn't matter.
Wrong can't be undone for the dead.
Right can't be taken from one to another.
That's on the people of those times and their leaders. The people didn't rise up (I'm sorry) and the leaders weren't forced to chose.
I understand that blacks get a few points here and there because of this or that, but they have blown it up beyond its time and kept two separate beyond reason.
My family built houses by trade, so they obviously had homes to live in, but before that generation, they had nothing; they were living in tents and barely had enough to eat. It's almost as irrelevant an argument of slavery because our side had indentured servants. My family has never kept much. Like every family, you have wealthy parties here and there, but they've never been truly affluent beyond a decade of old age.
But before you think that I'm standing up for my own and trashing theirs, black vs white culture is extremely different, and I prefer black culture over white culture in this country. Many say that blacks don't know how to work, over tax welfare, but for what is produced, it translates to sanity ,and they are, indeed, still semi-trapped by ideology's condition, which offsets the numbers a little bit but not that much. It's more or less comparing to their white peers that consume so much to rise to places almost predetermined, unnecessary moves and merit. Now, on the table, sits two worthless generations from the fallout of that one. Are they going to keep it this way for a third and fourth?
The crux of my appeal is more or less that time is time and its as it is and will be; it shouldn't be carried forward so heavily. I wish they'd force us together the old fashion way: poor people mix with poor people via need. They won't be able to do it easily in any other way because people will use anything to get ahead. The middle class itself is in a constant state of flux, so it's picky in many areas and more difficult to move, intransigent, and they won't willingly give up this or they'll lose that. Likewise, I'm all for the death of the middle class for that reason and a few other social arguments. Their power forestalls so much.
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