No More 'Negro' For Census Bureau Forms And Surveys

[struggle4progress]

No More 'Negro' For Census Bureau Forms And Surveys

The Census Bureau announced Monday that it would drop the word "Negro" from its forms, after some described it as offensive. According to the Associated Press, the term will be replaced next year by black or African-American ...

AP reports that the term was first used in the 1900 Census, and back in 2010, a bureau public information officer told us that the word had been on Census forms since about 1950.

But the bureau and the Census Director's Blog decided to tackle the issue after many African-American people complained about it during the 2010 Census ...

[11 Bravo]

1. My Jamaican friend informs me that the next person who refers to him as "African-American" ...

is going to ket kicked in the crotch.

[dipsydoodle]

2. In the UK we'd call him

English and he'd just have to put up with it.

[jberryhill]

5. I had wondered about whether folks from the Caribbean had an issue with that

West Indian?

What's great about "West Indian" is that it's twice wrong - They are further east than the persons wrongly identified as American Indians in the first place.

How anyone ended up with "West Indies" makes you wonder how the British ever managed to navigate anywhere.

[malaise]

6. Some folks use Afro-West Indian

but there are no settled positions on this one.
Many people don't use West Indian - they use Caribbean. Others use black or their country of origin. I know a Chinese Jamaican who detests being called Chinese. His grandfather was born in Jamaica.

[Cleita]

3. Now, when are they going to get rid of Hispanic?

There is no Hispania either ethnically or geographically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispania

We who are not entirely European or African, have ancestors that come from Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and so on and should be referred to as such. In my case I would be Chilean/American.

[struggle4progress]

4. The 2010 census had categories for

(*) Mexican, Mexican-American, or Chicano
(*) Puerto Rican
(*) Cuban
(*) Other Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin
(*) Not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf

[Cleita]

7. Yes, and the Hispanic is still there.

Also, Chicano and Latino are not accurate either. I would rather be known by the country of my origin, not some made up racial shit.

[struggle4progress]

10. Look at the pdf: identifying yourself by country of origin is an option

[Cleita]

11. Yes, I can, but those labels still should not be on the forms.

But most people who aren't part of the label don't see the inherent racism in those labels.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. Do we need to categorize race these days?

[llamalady]

9. Got a call from the Census Bureau after the 2010 census.

Seems they thought it was wrong of the husband & I to refuse to be categorized by ethnicity and insisted we make a different selection. You see we had both marked "Other" and wrote in "Human" on the census form and it seems they were very confused about that. I insisted we were indeed both human and the question had asked us for our race - not our ethnicity. Anyway, the lady finally realized I wasn't going to give in and eventually she let it stand.

[RB TexLa]

12. Are they still going to only have one race per box? Where people have to select two boxes

such as checking white and checking black and then wondering if it counts or not.