An educational defense for multiracial identityPosted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2012-05-16 02:34Z by Steven |
An educational defense for multiracial identity
San Francisco Chronicle
2001-07-25
Kimberly Cooper-Plaszewski
Celebrate rather than assimilate biracial heritages
U.S. CENSUS 2000 marked the first time in history that multiracial people were given the “option” to specify more than one race to describe their racial identity.
On the surface, this alternative may give the impression that people choosing to identify with more than one race on their census forms are endangering the plight of many civil rights activists and organizations with regard to civil rights appropriations.
Yet, contrary to this grossly widespread misconception, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget has determined that while racial data will be collected offering multiple race responses, those responses that combine one minority race and white will be allocated to the minority race for use in civil rights monitoring and enforcement…
…Rather than focusing indefinitely on what racial groups are supposedly losing from these changes to the census, let us, for the moment, focus on the fundamental gains for all racial and ethnic groups…
Read the entire opinion piece here.