Racial Identity's Gray Area

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Racial Identity's Gray Area
The Definition of Whiteness Continues to Shift
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
June 12, 2008; Page A10

When Barack Obama, whose mother was white, identifies himself as black, and when Bill Richardson, whose father was white, identifies himself as Hispanic, who is white? The U.S. Census Bureau says the country will be majority-minority in 2050 -- that is, the combined number of blacks, Asians, American Indians and Hispanics will put whites in the minority. Texas and California are already there. But the definition of white keeps shifting. Groups have been welcomed in or booted out; people opt out, sue to get in or change their minds and jump back and forth. The deepest racial divide, between blacks and nonblacks, endures.

(snip)

The U.S. has never found it easy to assign race, although it certainly has tried. A century ago, the people who did the counting -- demographers, sociologists, policy thinkers -- divided whites into three strata. They considered Nordic whites, from England, Scandinavia and Germany, the most ethnically desirable and elite, followed by the Alpine whites, from eastern and central Europe, and finally the Mediterraneans. Everyone else was identified as black, red, yellow or brown, which included South Asians. Whiteness and the privileges that came with it were so closely guarded that in 1912, a House committee held hearings on whether Italians were really Caucasian.. No one argued seriously that Jews and Greeks, or Irish and Poles -- light-skinned but poor -- weren't white, but whether they were ethnically Caucasian was up for debate, he adds... In 1922, the Supreme Court decided that a Japanese man had white skin but wasn't ethnically Caucasian, and it denied him citizenship. A year later, it decided a South Asian was ethnically Caucasian but not white, and it denied him citizenship, too. All of this because whiteness mattered a lot. Until 1943, only blacks of African heritage and whites could become naturalized citizens. Interracial marriage was illegal in some states until 1967, and some Jim Crow laws that protected white jobs, neighborhoods, voting rights and political power didn't fall until the 1970s.

(snip)

Intermarriage is now common, blurring racial lines. Demographers estimate that about 8% of the U.S. population is mixed race, and almost one million multiracial children were born since 2000, when "two or more races" became a separate racial category on the Census form. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, there was "some sentiment" among non-Arabs for counting Arab-Americans as nonwhite, says David Roediger, a University of Illinois race historian. Since then, the Arab-American Institute in Washington has unsuccessfully lobbied the government for a separate "Middle East and North African" category on the census. The institute puts the Arab-American population at three times larger than the Census estimates, which limits its political power and claims on government programs.

Some minorities or multiracial Americans who were once counted as white are opting out of the category. The population calling itself Native American quadrupled when the Census Bureau began asking people to identify themselves by race rather than relying on its own enumerators to do the job. The number of Hawaiian dropped by half when the "two or more races" category was introduced. Mexicans were long counted in the Census as whites because of an 1848 U.S.-Mexico treaty that allowed them citizenship; only whites and blacks could naturalize, so by that logic, Mexicans were white. But since 1980, Hispanics have had a separate Census category where even intermarried, non-Spanish speakers can include themselves, if they choose. One in eight people in the U.S. does, including Latin American, European and Caribbean Hispanics and their progeny.

Identity groups that once lobbied to be accepted as whites now see advantages in being nonwhite, including college-admission and hiring preferences. Some African-Americans who fear losing political power to the fast-growing Hispanic population have quietly urged Caribbeans and those of mixed race to identify themselves simply as black. Other minority groups are reclaiming their racial identities out of pride... That doesn't mean race won't matter, even as it becomes harder to define. Blacks still cannot jump back and forth across those shifting racial lines, which explains why Sen. Obama calls himself black even while he singled out his white grandmother in his speech claiming the Democratic nomination. That's not likely to change soon. Some demographers predict that within a century, there will be as many Americans who are mixed-race as there will be those whose parents are both of the same race, further blurring color lines. But that "hybridity," as demographers call it, will be concentrated among Hispanics and Asians who marry whites and each other, not among blacks.

(snip)



URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322793544566177.html (subscription)

[texasleo]

1. good read

[rebel with a cause]

2. "Hispanic...non-Spanish speakers can include themselves,

if they chose". Let me get this straight, if you are identified as Latino/Hispanic by others and don't speak Spanish, you can chose to be white? Or if they are from the Carribean they should identify as Black? Hahahaha. Nice way of getting that number of Latinos down in the census. People from the Carribean come in all shades, and although many of them have African in their heritage, they do not observe the "one drop rule" there. For a Dominican/Puerto Rican to call themselves Black when they are only a percentage of African would be asking them to give up they Hispanic/Latino heritage. My children were taught to be proud of their Latino heritage, and trust me they needed that pride to get them through the racism they endured, would not identify them selves as white or Black simply because that is not how they are seen. They admit that culturally they are more white than anything because I was the most influencing person in their life, but no matter how much they have in common with the white population, they are not seen as part of it. I laugh and say that we are our own culture. Started by me and carried on by them. But I would never say to them that because I am seen as white that they should take on that same identity because they are not seen as such or accepted as such.

This article is interesting and it did not make me mad, but that part of it really hit a nerve somehow. I think it is because the author seems to believe that one can chose one's own identity. Perhaps on a census form they can, but not in real life where real people put you in categories of what and who you look like. JMHO :shrug:

[question everything]

3. And, perhaps, this will eventually mix all of us into one pot

I remember reading how a grand jury was seeking candidates, and how it wanted to have a certain racial mix. This was in California, where almost everyone that we knew was of mixed race. And I often wondered how such a race was determined.

[rebel with a cause]

4. When my children were born in NYC

I didn't know what to put down as thier ethnic identity because they were very mixed. They told me that you always took on the ethnic identity of your father, so they were listed as Hispanic. Later, after I had lived in Illinois for some time, a man moved back into the area with his wife, who was Asian and their two daughters. I asked him one day if they had observed the same rule and if his girls were identified as 'white' on their birth certificates and such. He said they had, and I wondered how the girls would come to terms with their identity as such when others would probably always ID them as Asian.

If you or anyone have never studied race/ethnic identities and are interested in doing so, you might find it interesting to study somewhere like the Dominican Republic in contrast to what has gone on in the states. I think Brazil and Puerto Rico could also be used in this endeavor but could not swear to it. My studies for two years was done on D.R. and if you can do it with an open mind, it is really interesting. In these countries, while racial mixing was not allowed here, it was encouraged there. The idea was to "whiten up" the population, and was probably brought on by people wanting to be a part of the Spanish elite of the country. The history of the politics of D.R. are also interesting and how the states influenced it. Trujillo, their dictator for many years, had a remarkable amount of things in common with Saddam. Well, anyway it was/is interesting to me. ;)

[Number23]

5. Great read

Thanks for this. If this article proves anything, it's that this country has a long, twisted and sometimes painful history with race. The twisted logic that allowed Mexicans to be considered "white" so that they could become naturalized citizens is very telling.

But this sentence - "The deepest racial divide, between blacks and nonblacks, endures." makes it seem as if it's everybody on one side and black folks by themselves on the other, which I found interesting. In my conversations with my Arab, Hispanic, and Indian friends, it seems as if everyone has about a hundred horror stories of dealing with white people. Go figure....

[Number23]

6. It is a gray area

I just did a quick search on mulatto, quadroon and some of the other terms from the article and turned up an interesting web site that has pictures of famous bi-racial people. http://www.mixedfolks.com/hnaactors.htm

It is absolutely fascinating to see the myriad ways bi-racial people appear - some look completely one thing, some look completely the other. I have never felt sorry for the Census bureau until now.

This gorgeous black (looking) man is half white.

This white (looking) woman is half black -

Did you know Wonder Woman is half-Mexican??! I had no idea!