When It Counts—More On Obama and the Census |
When It Counts—More On Obama and the Census
InterfaithFamiliy.com
2010-05-03
Ruth Abrams
Elizabeth Chang wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, “Why Obama should not have checked ‘black’ on his census form,”
Although I knew Obama self-identifies as African American, I was disappointed when I read that that’s what he checked on his census form. The federal government, finally heeding the desires of multiracial people to be able to accurately define themselves, had changed the rules in 2000, so he could have also checked white. Or he could have checked “some other race.” Instead, Obama went with black alone.
I understand why Chang wrote this, and even though I’m mostly on the same page with her about a lot of this, I think she’s wrong.
Chang identifies as the mother of biracial children in an interfaith family, and as someone raising biracial Jewish children. The whole Jewish community is behind her in wanting her children to be able identify as more than one thing. Jewish and Chinese and Hawaiian? Beautiful, we are so on board with that.
But on the other hand, I think there is something to Chang’s phrase, “when it counts, he is black.” When it counts, stand up for the people who need you. Based on his experiences, Obama judged this was the time to count as an African American. I read the piece in Newsweek last September on the work ahead of parents who want to raise anti-racist children. Parenting “colorblind”—pretending that racism doesn’t exist and that people aren’t different—doesn’t make racism go away or make your children accept difference. In fact it demonstrably does the opposite…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: InterfaithFamiliy.com, Ruth Abrams