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March 10, 2010

Putting the census right

By Ethel C. Fenig
I,too, was reassured via a multi lingual letter from the cash strapped, government postal system that next week an envelope bearing the mandated census form will arrive. This was in addition to the second rate--but extremely expensive--census alert ad, sandwiched between some clever ones, during Super Bowl. Properly alerted, the next question is how to reply?

Mark Krikorian, writing in National Review Online , plans on answering the intrusive--and most likely illegal--census questions about race/ethnicity the way I usually do. Rejecting the tempting idea of messing up the census by lying, he suggests answering the question about the person's race

by checking the last option - "Some other race" - and writing in "American." It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, "American" was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

So remember: Question 9 - "Some other race" - "American". Pass it on.

An alternative answer used since high school: the sappy, but accurate, human (race).


I,too, was reassured via a multi lingual letter from the cash strapped, government postal system that next week an envelope bearing the mandated census form will arrive. This was in addition to the second rate--but extremely expensive--census alert ad, sandwiched between some clever ones, during Super Bowl. Properly alerted, the next question is how to reply?

Mark Krikorian, writing in National Review Online , plans on answering the intrusive--and most likely illegal--census questions about race/ethnicity the way I usually do. Rejecting the tempting idea of messing up the census by lying, he suggests answering the question about the person's race

by checking the last option - "Some other race" - and writing in "American." It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, "American" was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

So remember: Question 9 - "Some other race" - "American". Pass it on.

An alternative answer used since high school: the sappy, but accurate, human (race).