Offs.

Offs. The article manages to touch on a number of issues with this. I'd add a few more, but I guess people just call themselves whatever they decide and/or can fit on the form? How tribal does this get? Or are we supposed to generalize?

And why does this make me think about Nazi Germany and their record keeping and identity papers and so on? Why can't people consider themselves American at this point?

If there was a positive intent behind this, it seems murky, but I can see lots of opportunity for confusion and problems.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/01/582338628/-what-kind-of-white-2020-census-to-ask-white-people-about-origins?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180202
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/01/582338628/-what-kind-of-white-2020-census-to-ask-white-people-about-origins?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180202

Comments

  1. Christina L BrainardFebruary 2, 2018 at 8:14 PM

    And people don't necessarily know exactly or might not tell the truth.

    Like, I have researched and found my great grandmother on my dad's side reported being native American on one census and white on another.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stefanie FiskaaFebruary 3, 2018 at 3:47 AM

    My aunt acts like she's being damaged because "Cajun" isn't am option on these kinds of questions, so the super white woman answers "other" every chance she gets.

    ReplyDelete
  3. F-L SilverFebruary 3, 2018 at 5:54 AM

    She may like this, then. She can write in "Cajun".

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TIL that some languages apparently have words inherently differentiating one's status as a citizen or resident of...

TIL that some languages apparently have words inherently differentiating one's status as a citizen or resident of the entity versus a member of a particular ethnic or cultural group? I don't quite grasp the whole thing, although I heard the point being made. What's interesting to me is a) that there is such a thing, which seems very revealing of something about a culture that would need such concepts built into the language, and b) that there seem to be people who think it's inaccurate to interpret the word choice as meaningful. Firstly, since languages have all sorts of concepts built into them, many very specific to their primary culture of use, it seems reasonable that such a thing could exist. Not that I would have thought of it before, since I'm not from a culture where that sort of subtlety functions. Secondly, if that is, indeed, the subtlety of the word choices, where one essentially and inherently includes people, and the other excludes, then I'd kind o...
Read more

Took this canning class tonight because I was hoping to learn more about technical and scientificky stuff with...

Took this canning class tonight because I was hoping to learn more about technical and scientificky stuff with canning. I unendeared myself to the instructor early on after they said that you had to use a sugar syrup to can peaches because it stopped botulism (multiple people wanted to know if you could just use water). Upon which I enquired as to the mechanism whereby it prevented the release of botulinum toxin from the spores? I mean, I actually would have liked an answer to that question because there seems to be some serious debate as to whether or not sugar is really performing any preservative function whatsoever in various foodstuffs of the long stored kind. Needless to say, I got a rather snappish and uninformative answer back. I've found a little info by looking things up, like 38% sucrose or 22% glucose solutions inhibit growth of the spores in a lab setting. Nobody sits there and tries to calculate out an actual percent refined sugar solution, though, when they make a si...
Read more