Obama's Census Choice

I found this Washington Post essay very interesting. Check out Elizabeth Chang's "Why Obama should not have checked 'black' on his census form." It's a very engaging read.

I thought this especially interesting:

I also wonder: Aren't people supposed to fill out their census forms accurately? Why else are we doing it? If everyone put down on the form how they "identified," I don't know what kind of count we'd wind up with, but clearly it would not reflect the racial makeup of the United States. As many have argued, race is an almost useless construct, so that might not matter, except in one very important area: If every biracial person chose one race, as Obama did, or as people had to do before the forms were changed in 2000, the census would portray a society more divided than it actually is. I'm all for tossing the whole racial-classification bit now, but I also know that if we fill out our forms accurately, the numbers will someday do that for us by quantifying the ridiculousness of race. In the meantime, if we aren't going to get rid of the racial category, we need to do it right.

This is quite incisive too:

[T]here is an important consequence when our president does not acknowledge half of his heritage, or, more basically, the mother and grandparents who raised him, or even his commonality with his sister, who is also biracial, though with a different mix. If the most powerful person in this country says that because society thinks he looks black, he is black, it sends a message that biracial children have to identify with the side they most resemble.

Very provocative, no? If you doubt me, read the comments that follow Ms. Chang's piece.



Blessings!