{"id":52724,"date":"2017-03-22T13:05:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T13:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=52724"},"modified":"2017-03-22T13:05:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T13:05:49","slug":"im-a-bit-brown-but-in-america-im-white-not-for-much-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=52724","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a bit brown. But in America I\u2019m white. Not for much longer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a bit brown. But in America I\u2019m white. Not for much longer<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2017-03-21<\/p>\n

Arwa Mahdawi<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nColour coded \u2026 a large number of US citizens will have to check a new box on the census form if plans to redefine whiteness come to fruition. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The US Census Bureau<\/a> plans to redefine \u2018white\u2019 to exclude people with Middle Eastern and North African origins. It\u2019s a reminder that the identity has always been fluid<\/em><\/p>\n

We live in a weird time for whiteness. But, before I get into that, a small disclaimer. You may look at my name and worry that I am unqualified to speak about whiteness; I would like to set these doubts to rest and assure you that I myself am a white person. It\u2019s true that, technically speaking, I\u2019m a bit brown but, when it comes to my legal standing, I\u2019m all white. Well, I\u2019m white in America anyway. The US Census Bureau, you see, defines \u201cwhite\u201d as \u201ca person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East<\/a>, or North Africa<\/a>\u201d. Being half-Palestinian and half-English I fall squarely into that box.<\/p>\n

But I may not be able to hang out in that box much longer. There are plans afoot to add a new \u201cMiddle East\/North Africa<\/a>\u201d category to the US census. After 70-plus years of having to tick \u201cwhite\u201d or \u201cother\u201d on administrative documents, people originating from the Middle East and North Africa may soon have their own category.<\/p>\n

Whether our very own check box is a privilege or petrifying is still to be decided. Middle Easterners aren\u2019t exactly persona particularly grata in the US right now. Identifying ourselves more explicitly to the government might not be the smartest move \u2013 particularly considering that, during the second world war<\/a>, the US government used census data to send more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Census Bureau plans to redefine \u2018white\u2019 to exclude people with Middle Eastern and North African origins. It\u2019s a reminder that the identity has always been fluid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33,8,26,20],"tags":[26610,26413,2103,5367],"class_list":["post-52724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-census","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-arwa-mahdawi","tag-mena","tag-the-guardian","tag-united-states-census-bureau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52725,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52724\/revisions\/52725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}