Declining to State Race
The last time I filled out an application for a library card, I refused to state my race. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a box for race on such an application, but I was. No doubt the government believes it has a legitimate reason (for “statistical purposes only” to receive government grants?) to know the race of individuals applying for the privilege to borrow books. Whatever the reason may be, the whole idea is pre-civil-rights-era-retro.
I read with pleasure a story in the Sacramento Bee about high school students who want to be identified by their nationality and not their race or ethnicity. One student said she believes eliminating racial categories would make “racial hatred go away.” It probably won’t, but that’s not the point. The goal is to stop the government from categorizing its citizens by race, not necessarily to change an individual’s views on race.
Another student said, “If we were all one race, then there wouldn’t be any racism.”
While these young people may be naïve about differences and human nature, they have a purity of mind that resonates in my jaded brain. Racial differences are morally neutral, from my perspective. Differences are not good or bad per se; they just are. If you believe in God, as I do, you can appreciate how he decreed to diversify the world. How people treat others based on those differences is moral or immoral. Individuals can think whatever they want about race, but they may not interfere with another’s rights based on race, and our government may not treat people differently based on race (awarding race-based set-asides, etc.). It’s quite simple.
“From 2006 to 2009, the number of Elk Grove Unified School District students whose parents listed their race as ‘multiple/no response’ went from 500 to 6,200 – a twelve-fold jump in just three years, the California Department of Education says. About one of every 10 of the district’s students now list race as ‘multiple/no response.’ …There’s also been a dramatic rise statewide. Data show the number of K-12 students listing their race as “multiple/no response” has jumped 70 percent, from 124,000 in 2006 to 210,000 last year.
“But the U.S. Department of Education, which is trying to close the achievement gap between races, is asking school officials to ‘eyeball’ students who decline to state and check a box for them.
“‘We know and the feds know you can’t force someone to fill out a form. So what the feds have actually said is to more strongly encourage them to self-identify,’ said Keric Ashley, the state Education Department’s director of data management. ‘If all those efforts fail and the parents refuse, the feds say school officials should observe and report a race.’”
So, if students and parents decline to check the box, bureaucrats will make the decision for them? That may generate more controversy than racial preferences. Can you imagine? Your outward appearance might be “African American,” but both your parents are mixed race. You’re actually more “white” than “black,” but your government has assigned you to the “African American” racial category. (Unless you were born in Africa and became an American citizen, you’re not “African American” in any case.)
The article continues on about why it’s so important for the government to categorize citizens by race. The refusal to check the race box won’t make a significant dent in the government’s racial bean counting until a critical mass of Americans refuses to check the box.
Refusing to check the box on a library card application merely is one small step for a woman, and one giant leap for humankind. Eat your heart out, Neil Armstrong.
