The new categories for ethnicity and other descriptives on census forms can seem silly or even out of touch. But they’re there for a reason. America is changing all the time.
Jo Padilla speaks with a proxy outside a residential building while attempting to enumerate residents for the U.S. Census Bureau in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood on Sept. 24, 2020. On his HBO show “Real Time,” comedian Bill Maher recently went after Democrats for “pandering” to minority groups for votes.
Among his examples of how “outdated” race issues have become, Maher cited statistics that show a “276%” increase in Americans who identify as multiracial and how “1 in 5” newlyweds are in interracial marriages. “The more you obsess over identity, the more you ignore the bread-and-butter issues that win and lose elections,” he said. “The real issue is class, not race. And the real gap is the diploma divide. And the real future of the party and maybe democracy depends on Democrats figuring that out.”
For example, new choices for “Middle Eastern or North African” and a “Hispanic or Latino” box will appear under a reformatted question: “What is your race and/or ethnicity?” In my lifetime, I have seem my racial self-descriptor change in common usage from “Negro” and “colored” to African American and, most recently, back to “people of color.”
In fact, let’s face it: In a dynamic society as diverse as ours, all politics — at one time or another — are identity politics.
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