It’s pretty rich to see someone of Armenian descent claiming that he shouldn’t have to state his race since it was an Armenian who argued that he was white and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court so he wouldn’t be subject to the Asian and Exclusion acts.

Why does Krikorian hate his countrymen so much that he wants to sweep that hard-earned victory aside?

Just tell the asshat that if he doesn’t clearly mark White, the government won’t know if he is black or not, and just to be on the safe side, mark him as such, and then he will only count as 3/5 of a person.  10-1, the Aryanist cracker still thinks that is in force, and will scramble forthwith to scrawl “I am white!” across every page in his own feces.  God above, why couldn’t the North have executed all the white Southerners for treason when it had the chance - it was, is, and will continue to be the best way to improve the character and dignity of the United States of America (and as a white Southerner I would stand at the front of the line to get shot if all these treasonous, terroristic sons of bitches were assured to follow me - for the good of the Union I’d be willing to make the sacrifice)

Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — “Some other race” — and writing in “American.” It’s a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes.

It’s a nice thought, Mr. Krikorian.  And we will get right back to it once race and racism ceases to have any significance at all in our society.

Is he going to write “human” in for his gender as well?

Sexual classification is also none of the government’s business.  Except when it comes to marriages or who sleeps with who, or who gets access to reproductive health care.

Mnemosyne - well, they won.  That means that nobody needs to worry about it anymore, duh. 

It’s just like the Civil Rights Act.  We all have civil rights now, so what’s the problem?

“Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — “Some other race” — and writing in “American.””

...and don’t forget to staple on a tea bag before you mail it back…

***

I love the wingnut updating of the toddler idea that if you close your eyes the rest of the world goes away. 

No, Mr. Krikorian, the lingering racial problems in America are not there because Libruls make a big deal out of race.  Those problems exist because people like you are racists.  And that racism can’t just be wished a way by pretending it doesn’t exist…

Not to nit-pick but technically a race would require a distinct biological difference.  American would define ethnicity and technically most 3rd generation Americans would qualify under a technical requirement to be “Native” Americans though even the Native Americans crossed a land bridge. (Yes, you did.  Accept it…move on.) 

I find it strange that there is an American undercurrent so strong about fearing the government that it permeates every level of existence including the Census.  Course I grew up in a pro-government family so it is hard to understand.  My parents and now I am quite proud to fill out the little census bubbles because it means my region gets the money it deserves.

Census data are public.  So that means that the black people using computer welfare at the public library will be able to find white neighborhoods to pillage, right?

“I find it strange that there is an American undercurrent so strong about fearing the government that it permeates every level of existence including the Census.”

But I don’t think that’s what’s really behind it.  Sure, loathing of government, especially the Feds, runs deep in wingnuttia, but you know damn well that they want to know who and where every Muslim is in America, every Latino, every Black, every Liberal, every gay or trans person, etc.

It’s only when Real White Americans are asked for information about themselves that it becomes a problem…

Um, American (as used here) is a nationality. Is this person unable to tell the difference between race, ethinticity and nationality?  Oh, wait, of course he is confused; he is a Real American….
Of course, American really is indicative of a person/thing from two contenents and the land bridge between them, if I’m going to be picky.

America should definitely NOT collect data on race - because that’s how they do it in FRANCE!!! Fuck, yeah!!!

Mark Krikorian wants the FRENCH system.  Where they have a “colorblind” system which favors whites in every way.  But the only people who notice are the Muslims, and the fact that they riot periodically about the unfairness of it all proves that the are not really French.  Because their riots are totally different from the protests white French people have.

Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — “Some other race” — and writing in “American.”

Considering how often assholes like him have implied that mixed-race children of immigrants like me aren’t America, even if we were born in Florida (so when you tell me I should ‘go back home’ you mean I should retire to the beaches?), I find this idea especially ironic.

Remembering how hard people like me fought to get a mixed race category on the forms, and what a victory it was, I find this idea especially insulting.

Also, it’s very easy to ignore institutional racism when: 1) you don’t live near, work or socialize with minorities, and 2) there are no statistics showing minorities getting shafted by every conceivable measure (poverty rates, incarceration rates, educational attainment, wages, housing, etc etc etc).

It’s really easy to be “colorblind” and “post-racial” out in the suburbs or exurbs, patting ourselves on the back for racism being over because TigerWoodsDenzelWashingtonBarackObama.  But even out there, if we’re actually confronted with proof of widespread inequality—and it’s no longer acceptable to pretend it’s because them colored folk are simply of inferior stock—well, then we might have to face the fact that the system is, in fact, skewed in our favor and our success (limited though it may be in many cases) may not mean we’re inherently special, as a race or as individuals.  Worse, we might be expected to give up some of our privilege in an attempt to alleviate this disparity!

By limiting the collection of statistics on race we don’t need to be confronted with uncomfortable truths and can dismiss all future claims of racism as exaggeration or lies.  Problem solved.

My parents have reported that their right-wing suburban friends are urging each other not to fill out the census, giving the Evil Communist Obama Regime one less way to control them. We talked about framing the census as “a way to get your tax dollars back” but then we thought, on the other hand, if the Rethugs in the suburbs don’t show up on the census, but the low-income and/or progressive neighborhoods in the city, did, then we’d get more federal funding….

“There’s a strong tendency to believe that those who are the strongest proponents of ending all discussion of race in modern society are its most racist members.  This is because that belief is true.”

Classic. I’m totally stealing that.

I find it endlessly amusing to find these people posturing as “real Americans,” considering that this country has had a history of “othering” immigrants, including said commentator’s ancestors…

Irish? Papist conspirators!  Not American. (~1820).
Germans? Mennonites! Not American. (~1850).
Russians, Poles, and other Slavs?  Anarchists and agitators! Not American. (~1890).
Italians? Swarthy unreliable lazy Mediterranean types! Not American. (~1900).

... and so forth.  Mind you, these are just the “whites” ...  setting aside the continuing issues we have with people whose skin color is slightly different on the Real American color wheel.

IT’S TOO LATE! THE WHOLE SYSTEM HAS BEEN SUBJECTED TO A LEVEL 4 KRIKORIAN PARADOX!

This happened in New Zealand - people campaigned to be able to use “New Zealander” as an ethnic group in the census - previous options for NZ-born people of British descent were “NZ European” and “Pakeha”, which is the indigenous word for people of British descent.  One justification was that “oh, we’re all such a melting pot* that NZer is the only option for some”, but in reality it was those who wanted to obscure the longstanding socio-economic difference between indigenous Maori NZers and NZers of British descent who were the most keen.  Unsurprisingly, large pockets of “New Zealanders” were found in rural areas with very low numbers of other ethnic groups, and were disproportionately older and maler.  And now statisticians have a fairly useless ethnic category to decide what to do with.

*New Zealand is much less ethnically diverse than the United States.

You’d think a proud white fella would be into proudly declaring his majestic whiteness at any opportunity. Maybe he just wants to get race off the census so that we never have an official date at which the U.S. population is no longer majority white? Stop counting the brown people and then they’ll never realize that they account for a majority of the population?

I think collecting data is a good thing.
If you have enough data, you can sell the extra on e-bay!

Admittedly, aside from on Native American strain in my relatives, I actually don’t know where my other great-great grandparents came from.

But ‘American’ isn’t a race, doofus.

Maybe we should just make a chip on the paper that would sense skin tone or something.

unconstitutional racial classification schemes

Unconstitutional!  It’s unconstitutional!

I feel like I’m in a middle school debating class, listening to my opponent scream about how my arguments are invalid because I’m not on topic.  Is there a word that is the opposite of “constitutional scholar”?  Because the ignorance of these goons is so great, it really does require a more extensive and precise classification system.

I don’t really find ‘American’ to be any sillier than ‘German’ or ‘English’ or ‘Finnish’ or whatever nation-state one oddly equates with race. Where is the check box for “Mutt (Pale Skinned)”?

Is there a word that is the opposite of “constitutional scholar”?

“Constipated Liar” works for me.

Man, Jesse, most white people have gotten over that whole “slavery” thing, “racism,” “segregation,” etc., decades ago. They are living in a post-racial society, so why can’t you?

As we all know, the only racist spotted in recent memory is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who programmed the young Obama in his weekly sermons to hate the white man. God damn regular church attendance, anyways!

Under “Race”, I usually write “Rat”, which is a bit of a misnomer, since I’m not a Rat, I’m a Monkey.

*New Zealand is much less ethnically diverse than the United States.

Depends on how you define it.

CIA world factbook

USA:

white 79.96%, black 12.85%, Asian 4.43%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.97%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.18%, two or more races 1.61% (July 2007 estimate)

note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean persons of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin including those of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic, Spanish, and Central or South American origin living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic

NZ

European 69.8%, Maori 7.9%, Asian 5.7%, Pacific islander 4.4%, other 0.5%, mixed 7.8%, unspecified 3.8% (2001 census)

About 12% of USAians were foreign born - 23% of NZers were born overseas.

Auckland is the world’s largest Polynesian city.

Also, and for future reference - NZ is more urbanised than the US.  Stop with the rural stereotypes.

One of the many fictions of the right wing movement today is that the only racism still in existence is practiced by people of color against white people.  Thus, refusing to check off “white” on the census form is tantamount, in their minds, to refusing to wear the Star of David in Nazi Germany.  Yes, it’s just that dangerous and heroic.  A made for TV movie is sure to follow.

Also, and for future reference - NZ is more urbanised than the US.  Stop with the rural stereotypes.

You mean they don’t spend all their time fighting orcs or herding sheep?  Damn!  TV and movies have lied to me again.

And of course, some of the “American” idiots have no idea of their ancestry, so it’s fun to pretend their ancestors sprang spontaneously from the USA soil, rather than the uncomfortable reality that all were immigrants.

I know that I’m German on my mother’s side (grandfather passed through Ellis Island in 1894), one branch on my father’s side is Welsh-Scotch-Irish (earlier 19th century arrival), the other branch goes back to Dutch farmers before the English arrived, with a dash of French and Native American.

That lone Native American ancestor is also the lone “American” in the family tree. The rest of us are immigrants and their mutts.

I see this idea as kind of like a wingnut onion, because there’s several layers of meaning here.  People have already identified the conceit of declaring race a dead issue that the government has no legitimate interest in.  But calling yourself a member of the “American” ethnicity of race does three other things that I consider important. 

First, it’s an attempt to redefine the term American so that it’s exclusive rather than inclusive.  “Americans” will be white.  In comment #24 Sarcastro points out that ethnicity is fake and culturally constructed, but hey, it’s still a practical reality.  In theory American identity has been especially inclusive without respect to race (of course in practice different races are treated differently).  Reactionary racist/nativist whites have always tried to hijack the term to deny it to the targets of their antipathy.  This is nothing new in that respect, Krikorian just wants it in the official record.

The second thing the “American” idea does is just clumsy propping up of white reactionary cultural hegemony—white people don’t consider themselves race because they see themselves as the standard against which race is judged.  They define ethnicity in terms of deviation from what they see as the norm, which is whiteness.  So this makes perfect sense to them.

The third thing this does for them is reducing the usefulness of the census in representing American demographics.  Rather than accurately identifying the racial makeup of the area surveyed, calling themselves “American” based on essentially political views allows them to repurpose Question 9.  No longer tracking ethnic or racial heritage, Question 9 helps them track self-identified “Americans,” their fellow travelers.  This will no doubt help them cope with the pain of an increasing hispanic population—with whites split between the Irish/Italian/German/Norwegian/etc. groups, Mexican-Americans are likely to attain plurality in the 2010 census, which would be a symbolic blow to racists.

As a possible fourth point, maybe people like Krikorian have figured out that telling reactionary whites not to fill out census forms at all is a terrible idea, because the census is used to apportion representation.  So they wanted to reverse course a bit and give Tea Partiers a way to use the census to make a poorly thought-out and half-understood political statement (their favorite kind!), so that they actually fill out the forms.

Well looks like Xerenar agrees with Newt Gingrich on Native Americans.  We’re all just immigrants!  So, guess we better finish throwing out the last vestiges of the treaties between the US and Indian tribes.  Yup.  Close the reservations and sell ‘em off to pronto to the highest bidder.  I am sure Krikorian would approve.

To nitpick a nitpick, I’d say third-generation - also second generation - Americans are native Americans (small n), not Native Americans.

Since when is racial classification unconstitutional?  Racial *discrimination* is unconstitutional, but not classification.  What a dumbass.

This comes from the same place as the specious argument that affirmative action is unconstitutional; because it is “reverse discrimination” and discrimination is illegal dontchaknow.

Is this the guy who didn’t like to have to pronounce foreign names?  I can’t keep my wingnuts straight.

You mean they don’t spend all their time fighting orcs or herding sheep? 

It’s difficult to tell on Saturday nights in Courtney Place.

I LOLed a bunch of times while reading this.  Thanks!

Of course there’s an American “race.”  Because I’m always being told I don’t “look American” on account of some physical characteristic and then being declared “English.”  Yeah, my family does have some roots in England, although we’ve been “American” since before there was an America ...

Oh well.  I shall enjoy my new English race.  I hope this doesn’t negate my American citizenship or something.

Well looks like Xerenar agrees with Newt Gingrich on Native Americans.  We’re all just immigrants!  So, guess we better finish throwing out the last vestiges of the treaties between the US and Indian tribes.  Yup.  Close the reservations and sell ‘em off to pronto to the highest bidder.  I am sure Krikorian would approve.

To nitpick a nitpick, I’d say third-generation - also second generation - Americans are native Americans (small n), not Native Americans.

I’m a dirty historian who doesn’t mind that occaisonally societies get overrun.  Somehow you managed to extrapolate that I loathe native americans because I agree with science?  That’s an intriguing idea, but completely wrong.  My late wife was Native American and we both knew that eventually that reservations would always hold the people who chose to live outside of modern culture down and there is no political incentive to change it.  It’s a horrible idea to break the reservations up but it doesn’t solve the issues, nor do the casinos, or any attempt to “give land back.”  The whole issue is more complicated than I care to get into right now.

Josh @36, Dan @38: yes, Krikorian is definitely the guy who made the argument that True Americans should take care to mangle the pronunciation of names like “Sotomayor.”  According to Mr. Armenian-Sounding-Name, True Americans should pronounce it on the model of “Niedermayer.”

One of the brilliant evil strokes of the reagan revolution was to stop collecting as many as possible of the statistical series that could show how badly they were screwing over poor and middle-class citizens.  And to redefine the rest so that before/after comparisons would require a bunch of eye-glazing footnotes and nit-pickable adjustments. It’s been going on ever since.

Of course, from the point of view of the census people, this will make whites/northern-and-middle europeans/etc an even smaller group than before, because there’s nothing stopping members of other races (ahem) from calling themselves “other/american” as well.

Coming up next: the Census formularies start arriving in the mail, and wingnuts discover that the Census allows people to claim that they’re simultaneously Hispanic and white.

No, because condescension drips from your posts.  I don’t disagree with the science, I resent its abuse by the Gingriches of the world by twisting it and using it to pick up the termination efforts of the 1950s.

One of the brilliant evil strokes of the reagan revolution was to stop collecting as many as possible of the statistical series that could show how badly they were screwing over poor and middle-class citizens.

*cough* *cough* Bush and M3 statistics *cough*

I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in knowing that the money supply was growing twice as fast as GDP.  And I’m sure it had noting to do with the growth in unsustainable credit, record profits for the financial sector, or the various bubbles that keep on hitting the American economy…

No, because condescension drips from your posts.  I don’t disagree with the science, I resent its abuse by the Gingriches of the world by twisting it and using it to pick up the termination efforts of the 1950s.

Condescension from an internet post? I can imagine a great deal of feelings, but frankly condescension from my posts is a bit much.  I mentioned the land bridge because a great deal of Native Americans still refuse the science because of the fact it weakens their overall argument & generally attacks on their heritage in some respect.  I can understand the valid concern over it but it is a scientific fact at this point.  I am in no way advocating destruction of the people further but as the situation currently sits, reservations are a bust, casinos are at best a bandage, and without a certain amount of integration or serious preservation attempts the culture will eventually break down completely.  It is inevitable as with any dominant culture to a minority one.  It doesn’t make it a question of morality over who was right to do what, but the current generation needs to make an effort to fix the problems we have.

As the right never misses an opportunity to spout malignant rhetoric, you can put this new meme on your calendar about a year from now:

“Very few Blacks and Hispanics chose ‘American’ on the census form because they hate America.”

When I read this today via a link on Michelle Malkintented’s blog, I immediately saw the alterior motive of this piece.  I wrote about on my blog that basically the more white people declare themselves “American”, the fewer white people there will be in the Census results, so the percent of whites will drop faster than expected.  The racists will then have a more reason to become fearful and racist as they try to declare that the white population is dropping.  Expect them to start demanding that white women have more babies also.

Am I the only one who saw that?

Expect them to start demanding that white women have more babies also.

What white women? We’re all “American” now, bitchez! Which means, I guess, that we ladies had better be trying our darndest to pop out babies that are 80% white, 13% black, 4% Asian, 1% First Nation/native, 1ish% Islander and 15% Hispanic (according to the comment above.)

That’s right, people-who-don’t-understand-that-“Hispanic”-overlaps-racial-categories, my future babies are gonna be 114% pure grade-A American! (Also, this may require sex with a wide variety of dudes to get the proportions just right. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. ‘Cause I’m just a patriot like that. :D)

Now, at no point in the entire history of ever has any court ever held that the government simply knowing about racial identification on a macro scale is unconstitutional.  In fact, it would pretty much render the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments unenforceable if the government couldn’t collect data about race.

I’m pretty certain that such views would have also rendered the entire legislative branch of the government as unconstitutionally apportioned up until that point, which would have been a neat trick.

i must vigorously protest! there should be at least two categories for “other”: american & texan.

i do not want to be confused with those bozos southwest of me!

I find it so very telling that when this clown wants to claim that we are post racial and should all just use an inclusive term, he chooses “American” rather then the more obvious and accurate “human.”

Cause even on the census, where, I assume there’s a separate box for citizenship, even when we’re being (?!?) post racial, we gotta make sure we exclude the dirty furriners.

A better solution Lymis for being post-racial: leave it blank.

I do population-based research, and wherever a race/ethnicity question comes up I see people writing in “American”. I just mark them down as white. Because, duh.

I don’t really find ‘American’ to be any sillier than ‘German’ or ‘English’ or ‘Finnish’ or whatever nation-state one oddly equates with race. Where is the check box for “Mutt (Pale Skinned)”?

I don’t think that most people would consider “German” or “Finnish” to be a race, but would use some more specific term like maybe ethnicity or something even milder like ancestry.  Even so, those countries are still different from the USA because they have longer histories.  For example, my ancestors come from Italy and Germany, but I was born in the United States.  I would consider my race to be white or Caucasian, but I would still consider myself of German or Italian descent.  It’s more similar to a Native American considering their race to be American because their ancestry has been around here a lot longer.

However, I did just think of something that we all seem to have missed.  “American” could very easily apply to people in dozens of other countries, specifically those in North or South America.  United Statesian sounds weird, but this country really doesn’t have a monopoly on being “American”.

Oh, no, catgirl. Those mexicans absolutely positively aren’t american. And canadians even less so.

So apparently this has always been an interesting trend in Pennsylvania. A few years ago in a diversity class I TAd the vice-provost of diversity came in to discuss racial and ethnic breakdowns in the state. If you know anything about Pennsylvania we have this phenomenon called the PA T. Basically two big, liberal, mixed race cities at either end of the state and a whole bunch of white, rural, “real Americans” in the north and center of the state. A popular statement is that PA is Philly at one end, Pittsburgh at the other and Alabama in between.

But the speaker brought up the map of voting trends by county that mirrored this T. Then he brought up a map of reported ethnicity/race by county. Unsurprisingly there was this whole mix of races around the cities with higher concentrations of white, irish, polish, german/amish in the suburbs near the highly developed areas that the large waves of immigrants into the state in the 1700 and 1800s. In the middle (the areas that love their guns and bibles the most) the results were American. In general as one previous poster stated these “Americans” tended to be Scotch-Irish-English. When the massive influx of Irish began into the US these original mixed Irish descent settlers (who tended to be rich and associated with affluent protestant Britain) did not want to be associated with the horrible sub-human Catholic Irish now coming into the country. So they dropped their race to American and began hating and excluding other European immigrants.

Xeranar said:

... even the Native Americans crossed a land bridge. (Yes, you did.  Accept it…move on.)

Ah yes, the “Native American claims to being indigenous can be deemed untrue if you go far enough back, therefore their ‘America is our native homeland’ claims are no more valid than that of white Americans, except for all of those brown people who showed up after *my* family arrived” argument. Those are great. Thank you for making Native American rights and issues even more insignificant to the majority.

By that same argument, Xeranar, there are no Europeans or Asians either. We all came out of Africa and saying otherwise is completely avoiding historical fact. (Accept it…move on.)

Unsurprisingly, large pockets of “New Zealanders” were found in rural areas with very low numbers of other ethnic groups, and were disproportionately older and maler.

Unsurprisingly, the people who self-identify their race as ‘American’ are most commonly from Appalachia.

“United Statesian sounds weird, but this country really doesn’t have a monopoly on being “American”. “
Well, iirc we *are* the only country with “America” in our name (while we share “United States” with at least one other country)...

cpinva, you wouldn’t want to forget TX, as many settlers came from other parts of the South, in my own family line in TX, from the Old Dominion itself, FWIW.

Texans didn’t come out of nowhere, however many residents would like to believe that.

Germany, as a nation, is not older than the USA.  German as a language, large region and culture/ethinticity, yes; as a nation, no.
They may still refer to themselves as Hesseins or Rhinelanders or Franks or whatever, much more so than USAians refer to themselves as state-ians (other than Texans and some Californian/Californios, that is, who are also a more recent additions that have a fairly strong pre-USA seperate national or regional identity).  Granted, this is much more prevelant in my grandparents’ generation than my parents’, my parents’ than mine, mine than my adult childrens’.  I expect it will die away completely in another couple or so.

catgirl @ 58,
I mentioned the American is from the N & S American continents issue back @11.

Maybe he just wants to get race off the census so that we never have an official date at which the U.S. population is no longer majority white? Stop counting the brown people and then they’ll never realize that they account for a majority of the population?
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