The Clinton administration’s new rules for racial and ethnic classification make about the tidiest compromise the government could make of a most untidy situation.
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In a classic Clintonian compromise, the White House has rejected a “multiracial” category for people of mixed racial heritage. Instead, the rules for the census in the year 2000 will allow Americans for the first time to identify themselves as members of more than one race.
But before we plunge deeper into the complications that opens up, it is useful to note what else the administration, after years of heated–sometimes wrenching–study and hearings by the Office of Management and Budget, has decided with regard to how we should classify ourselves as we cross our shaky ethnic bridge to the 21st Century.
Among other changes decided by the OMB:
The name of the “Black” category should be changed to “Black or African American.” Additional terms such as “Haitian” or “Negro” can be used if desired.
The term “Hispanic” should be changed to “Hispanic or Latino.”
“Alaska Native” should replace the terms “Alaskan Native,” “Eskimo” and “Aleut.”
The term “American Indian” should not be changed to “Native American,” but the term “Hawaiian” should be changed to “Native Hawaiian.”
The Asian or Pacific Islander category should be separated into two categories–“Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.”
Among the suggested new racial or ethnic categories that were rejected are: Arab, Cape Verdean, Middle Eastern and a host of others.
Got that? The government’s attempts to classify us by race begin quickly to sound absurd, even downright sinister, in their resemblance to Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg laws or South Africa’s apartheid codes.
It’s hard to be precise about race and ethnicity since race and ethnicity aren’t very precise in a country where most residents can claim more than one racial or ethnic heritage. Race and ethnicity are less of a biological or genetic construct than a social, cultural and emotional construct. It is what we say we are and, just as important, what others say we are.
That’s why some critics say we should stop trying, that the government should just get out of the racial classification business, as Mexico did in the 1920s. But Mexico has long been a racial utopia compared to its historically segregated and color-coded neighbor to the north.
Before we Yankees can get past race, we must first work our way through the legacy of three centuries of institutional racism. A better model for us to observe is South Africa. Instead of foolishly trying to pretend that race and ethnicity suddenly do not exist as something government should care about, South African blacks and whites are implementing vigorous affirmative action.
Their goal is to integrate the black majority into the white minority’s economy as quickly and smoothly as possible. To do otherwise would only invite further tensions and self-destruction.
The real question raised by our government’s racial classifications is, what should the role of government be in fixing the problems of social and economic inequalities that earlier Americans helped to create?
Our need for national racial standards grows out of the government’s responsibilities to enforce civil rights. Eliminating racial classifications also would eliminate the most useful tool we have for monitoring equal access in housing, education, employment and other areas in which Americans have experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity.
That’s what makes the OMB decision to reject “multiracial” as too vague but to allow people to check more than one box such an elegant decision. It begins the long arduous process of eliminating the “one-drop” rule that said one drop of black blood makes you black. But, despite the protestations of the NAACP and other civil rights groups, it is likely to have virtually no impact on civil rights enforcement, since barely 1 percent of blacks, according to OMB polls, would check a box other than black.
Still unanswered is how the government will count those who check other boxes along with “black.” The wise choice would be to continue as in the past, since the vast majority of blacks still “look black,” and prejudice is 90 percent appearances.
At the same time, I think the OMB rules change marks the beginning of the end for race as a significant matter for government to be concerned about. But it’s only the beginning. Americans still have a long way to go before we reach the golden day when we can all classify ourselves simply as “American.”