by Major W. Cox
"Just call me black," State Rep. Alvin Holmes said expressing his satisfaction with current government-mandated racial classifications. Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget's Statistical Policy Directive No.15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting, has come under criticism. Directive No.15 outlines standards used by the government for record keeping, collection, and presentation of data on race and ethnicity. Both citizens reporting race and ethnic information, and users of this information, indicate that the categories defined in Directive No.15…American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic and White…are becoming less useful in reflecting the diversity of our nation's population.
Responding to this criticism, OMB conducted public hearings in Boston, Denver, and San Francisco. The July 1994 hearings provided interested parties an opportunity to assist OMB in the decision process. They received comments on the adequacy of the current categories, principles to guide revisions to the categories, and specific recommendations.
With racial pride and political power at stake, as well as billions of tax dollars targeted for race-specific programs, more than 40 individuals testified at the San Francisco hearings. The headline in the San Francisco Examiner, "Census's racial designations slammed in S.F.," summarized the mood of those testifying saying that no groups…white, black, Hawaiian, Creole, Arab American, Mexican American or Native American…were happy with the current categories. Speaker after speaker in San Francisco, Boston and Denver called for alternatives including: creating a "multi racial" category; adding Hispanic to the list of races; changing the term black to African American, and eliminating all racial distinctions.
The current categories are problematic for a number of reasons. Many individuals find the classification standards indeterminate, confusing and ambiguous. Take for example, the White and Hispanic classifications: Current policy categorizes White as "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East" and a Hispanic as "a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race." Using these classifications, a person born in Spain and immigrating to Alabama could be classified as White, while a person coming here from Mexico or Puerto Rico would be classified as Hispanic. However, both might be classified White the next time Alabama creates majority-minority voting districts.
The issue becomes more confounding with the Black category. Black is defined as "a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa." Using this definition, a person with a mixed heritage, stemming from black Africa and white Europe is classified as black. Many Americans reject this exclusionary aspect of the current racial classifications. They view this policy as continuing the "One Drop Rule" used during slavery to classify children born of a sexual union between a white person and a Negro slave. One Drop refers to how much (or little) Negro blood needed be in a person's heritage for that individual to be classified Negro.
Ironically, a proposed multiracial category faces significant opposition from several groups including the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Coalition for an Accurate Count of Asian Pacific Americans. It has been suggested that these groups oppose the multiracial designation out of fear that such a category will reduce the number of blacks, Latinos and Asians counted by the census. Any reduction in their census numbers could translate to a reduction in racially targeted government programs.
Whites aren't happy either. Speaking for the Conference of Americans of Germanic Heritage, Gerhard Holford suggested that the "white" category be eliminated and, in his case, replaced with Germanic. "Americans of European heritage have disavowed the term `white' as part of their identity," he said. Holford explained that his group wants the change because of the common stereotype that anyone who identifies him or herself as "white" is latently or potentially a white supremacist. "White is a color, not a racial designation…White is a political idea or a state of mind," he testified.
Clearly many, if not most, Americans are unhappy with the present racial classifications. Among the most unhappy are Americans choosing to cross racial barriers to marry and create racially mixed families…1,161,000 in 1992, up from a total of 310,000 in 1970. They find OMB's Directive No.15 an unwarranted and divisive intrusion into their lives. Current classifications force children within these racially mixed families to deny part of their heritage by having to choose one of five categories.
These OMB hearings provided Americans with an opportunity to speak to the issue of race classifications. The government now knows, that unlike Rep. Holmes, many Americans are unhappy at being classified and categorized by race.
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Originally Published: August 1994, Montgomery Advertiser
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