3 ms·

Best Quote of the article... "Essentialism rears its ugly head in racial terminology. The majority of "African Americans" are of mixed race. Yet so entrenched

by jqm 12y ago

Best Quote of the article... "Essentialism rears its ugly head in racial terminology. The majority of "African Americans" are of mixed race. Yet so entrenched is our essentialist mind-set, American official forms require everyone to tick one race/ethnicity box or another: no room for intermediates." Yes, this has driven me nuts for years. I had to fill out a form a few days ago with the "race" check box (optional of course...). I keep scratching my head and wondering how one exactly determines this and what difference it makes and most of all... why would somebody put such an unreasonable and fallacious question on a form?

MichaelGG 12y ago
What's wrong with it, besides the very limited answer space? They should let you check of multiple boxes or fill in rough percentages. That allows finding things like "people with 15% or more X ancestry tend to do better on Y". It's not unlike asking "What culture are you?" Providing useful answers may be difficult, but it's not fundamentally a wrong thing to ask.