Which Census Box Will My Kids Check?
And a much better question: Why?
The race and ethnicity statistics from the 2020 Census were released on Thursday. It’s hard to know what make of the data. The number of multi-racial people is skyrocketing, though if you: 1) Go outside, ever; and 2) Have functioning eyeballs, you already knew that. Tucker Carlson must have a mole in the AP, because they went with a “White Population Shrinking” headline that will be to the far right what killing a mastodon was to cave people: They’ll feed off of that for at least a month, probably more.
I checked “white” on my Census form, because I’m a white guy. I have peach-ish skin, a Spotify playlist called “Arcade Fire (early)”, and a closet full of Gap clothes, so: Yep, that’s a white guy. Though it’s not actually quite that simple: A few years ago, I did 23&Me and learned that I’m a bit more than two percent Sub-Saharan African. I’ve never checked “African American” on anything, because that would seem like some Rachel Dolezal bullshit. Though it does make me wonder: What’s the “cutoff” for any of this? And why?
The last people to be very into the “how much counts?” question were Jim Crow-era segregationists. They settled on the “one drop” rule, meaning that if you have any African ancestry, you’re Black. So, by that standard, I’m Black. It makes me laugh to think of how the world would react if I started presenting as Black; how long would it take Twitter to cancel me if I were to, say, start holding workshops for BIPOC writers dressed in a dashiki? Would it take minutes? Seconds? They might need to consult a special clock at MIT to measure the infinitesimal length of time it would take to cancel me.
