WTF is up with the Census?

There do seem to be some issues with this census form. I can understand what they were trying to do with regards to the Hispanic/Latino issue. However, it has not only caused confusion, but some Hispanics think there is something sinister going on. The problem stems from confusion over the terms race and ethnicity. In taxonomy, race means a subspecies, but we are all Homo sapiens sapiens, so all humans are of a single race.

In 20th century anthropology, there are only 3 to 5 races depending on who you talk to. The 5 race categories are Caucasoid (White), Congoid (Black), Capoid (Blacks from SE Africa – aka Bushmen), Mongoloid (Asians – including American Indians), and Australoid (Aboriginal Australians). However, many contend that there are really only three races: Asian, Black and White, with all others being a mixture of two or more.

The problem with considering Hispanics to be a race rather than an ethnicity is because Hispanics can be of any race. Consider Sammy Sosa. He is a Black Hispanic. A Mayan living in Mexico is an Asian Hispanic, and many Hispanics are clearly White. As for Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc…they are different ethnicities, but they are all Asian in terms of race. Because of these issues, many would like to drop the term race all together and just refer to people’s ethnicity. However, that approach has problems as well. I think the people at the census are doing the best they can with a difficult and often touchy situation.

Exactly what purposes the Federal Gov’t has for these distinctions cannot be known. For this reason, and others, I will never complete a census form.
They do, however, try to make it as clear as they can, in anticipation of retards like yourself, who cannot understand something as simple as Question 9 MAY have ONE answer (or more).
BTW, there are 3 main races (several others are irrelevant to the US census – tiny populations in Africa). The 3 are caucasoid, negroid, and mongoloid. Pick one. Any lesser distinction is a tribe. The definition of the word has been abused so much that its real meaning is lost in popular culture. The concept of race does not even exist, if you ask an anthropologist or geneticist, because those two “professions” are, and have historically been, politically “sensitive”.

There are black Hispanics, white Hispanics, etc. as named above. The concept of race isn’t biological, anyway – it’s social. “Hispanic” has more to do with which “native peoples” were displaced and then assimilated into the colonizing “European people,” who were from a cross-cultural zone made up of “whites” and “Moors” from Africa.

The old “there are 5 races” concept is dated. And the term “caucasoid” isn’t useful in dealing with anything having to do with skintone – it’s about the size and shape of a skull found near the Caucasus mountains – it was assumed by the (obviously prejudiced and white European) scientists who discovered it that it “fit best” with the origins of “white folks” because it had a larger cranial cavity.

Basing “race” on skintone, or even skull structure, is using a single cosmetic biological trait for comparison. Many African ethnic groups have more biologically in common with pale-skinned Northern Europeans than with other “black” ethnic groups from distant parts of Africa.

I think you answered your own question, though, about the purpose of the question. I think the government gives itself an “out,” as it were, by 1) allowing you to choose more than one answer, and 2) having an “other” section where you can write in the way you choose to self-identify.

In many ways, this, too, is the purpose of the question (and the census) – to track the way in which Americans self-identify. It also reflects which ethnic groups have the strongest (or rather most vocal) lobbies and political sway.