5 ms·
How do they determine one’s race in the US? Is there a central database where everyone gets a record at birth? Otherwise what stops me from reporting myself as
by layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
How do they determine one’s race in the US? Is there a central database where everyone gets a record at birth? Otherwise what stops me from reporting myself as black?
- mcphage 7y agoNothing, although if colleges accepted you under the assumption that you reported who you were honestly, and then later found out that you weren’t who you claimed to be, you might find your acceptances revoked.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoHow would they find out my race? Based on the looks? So they would count Michael Jackson as “white”? What if a person looks white but has black ancestors?
- mcphage 7y agoIf you apply for a scholarship based on your heritage, how do they decide if you qualify?
- prepend 7y agoProbably not. I remember a story of someone who did this [0] and nothing happened. I can only imagine the terrifyingly embarrassing situations where people of a race are challenged to prove their race and flip out because they are their race. [0] https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/ https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains...
- knolax 7y agoThe Census collects racial information that most people answer with responses they believe to be truthful. IIRC in WW2 it was used to identify Japanese-Americans for internment.
- azeotropic 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal