Proposition 54: Racial labels troubling to many

Sacramento Bee ^ | October 4, 2003 | Stephen Magagnini

[calcowgirl]

Nadine McMillon, a Sacramento executive assistant, resents being asked her race or ethnicity.

"Sometimes I check 'other,' and sometimes I check both 'black' and 'white,' " said McMillon, who's not satisfied with either option. "My mom is French European and my dad is mixed African American, American Indian and Irish."

[DoctorZIn]

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[Texas_Jarhead]

""When you have 'Italian American,' 'Irish American' or 'Iranian American,' that is wrong," he said. "We are all Americans and that is the beauty of this nation.""

Amen brother.

[radiohead]

It would be kind of refreshing not to have to think of your race first," said Mendoza

No kidding.

[GeronL]

DAZI slogan is 'we must divide the people with categories and labels so that we may conquer them'.

[July 4th]

I always love relating the story of my friend from South Africa. He's white, and his family got the hell out when apartheid ended. But on all of his college applications, and subsequent job applications, he was quite happy to check the African-American box. Just goes to show, some people can't fit into 6 or 7 stupid check-boxes.

[GeronL]

there should be no check boxes, but the DemSocialists like to put people into categories for easy filing. They like to use group indentity to get votes. Those DAZI's!

[donmeaker]

My second wife is 1/4 black, 1/4 american indian, 1/4 white and 1/4 don't know. My daughter gets some polish and german added to that. My daughter looks hispanic. So what do I put in the box? If no decisions are to be made with the data, then why gather it. If decisions are to be made with the data, then it is racist, as well as inaccurate, and we are in even more trouble.

[GeronL]

I'm against racial check boxes, so it makes no sense to me.

I am about 13% Choctaw, does that mean I can check Native American??

[Oatka]

"Sometimes I check 'other,' and sometimes I check both 'black' and 'white,' "

I used to check "refused" but now I randomly check other races. THEN I let everybody know about it. Consider, if everybody did that and made it known, the next time some pollster tries to give a racial breakdown, the quality of his info can be challened since "everybody lied about who they were".

I worked with one black kid who always identified himself as "Afro-American". One day I challenged him and said he was not. He got all huffy and asked what did I think he was.

I told him, "AMERICAN, of African heritage" and that he was emphasizing the wrong race (yeah, I know American isn't a race but I was trying to jar him out of his potential "victim" mindset).

To his credit, he thought about it a few seconds and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right".

[EveningStar]