Professor: Racial categorization remains necessary in CensusPosted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, United States on 2011-09-06 20:31Z by Steven |
Professor: Racial categorization remains necessary in Census
Medill Washington
Medill News Service
Medill School, Northwestern University
2011-08-08
Angie Chung
WASHINGTON—Does where we come from tell us whom we are? Why do we come in different colors? Does skin color equal race?
Talking about racial issues can be a never-ending discussion. It’s complicated.
The Census Bureau adopted a question that allowed for checking more than one box to describe ancestry in 2000. Ever since, questions have surfaced about the effectiveness of asking people to affirm their identity.
The notion of race is not a scientific construct, said Phil Tajitsu Nash, an Asian American studies professor at the University of Maryland. But the U.S. needs to have those categories in the Census to create a better understanding of its multiracial population.
During the discussion with visitors at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s ‘Race: Are We So Different?’ exhibition on Wednesday, Nash pointed out that people often don’t want to confront the notion of racism, saying they’re opposed to racial society.
“I personally would love to see a post-racial society, but we’re not living in a one now.”…
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