Perpetuating Racism Through Racial Classification

June 27, 2004

Perpetuating Racism Through Racial Classification

American Military University

EN 102, Effectiveness in Writing

by James Landrith

As a so-called interracially married husband and father of two multiracial children, I can say without reservation that I believe racial classifications and the assorted baggage they carry contribute to the continuation of American racism. These classifications, as used by the American government and educational institutions, produce an unhealthy ‘us vs. them’ mindset based solely on arbitrary divisions, set-asides and perverse incentives for group identification based on skin color and other arbitrarily selected factors. This system forces Americans to abandon the sanctity of their individuality in favor of group-think or skin-color solidarity, to the detriment of our whole society. Further, as I can also claim multiple racial ancestries, I can’t escape the thought that these boxes were likely used to segregate and persecute some of my own ancestors. Government imposed racial classifications, as a by-product of our nation’s slavery heritage, perpetuate racism, rather than defeating racism and racialism in American society.

The concept of racial classification is North America is older than our country’s founding. It was Carolus Linnaeus, writing in 1735, who promulgated the ugly practice of dividing human beings into categories based on arbitrarily selected physical traits (Spencer 24). This practice promotes the concept of different classes of Americans, based on arbitrary lines of division such as skin color or ancestral nation of origin. This system is based on a completely unscientific program of classification, modeled on the desires of slave traders and the subjugation of human beings for profit. Contrary to the misinformation and half-truths spread by organizations in favor of retaining these classifications; they were not created for the purpose of tracking discrimination or monitoring health care trends in specific demographic groups. While there is limited use of racial classification data for monitoring compliance with certain state and federal regulations and laws, these classifications were not created for these purposes.

Throughout our nation’s history, we have used these classification schemes to promote discrimination and segregation based on racial demographic. Such classifications were used to keep descendents of slaves in bondage. Further, the classifications were used to limit the liberty of freed slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In twentieth century Virginia, Dr. Walter A. Plecker, State Registrar of Vital Statistics, used racial classifications to persecute and disenfranchise multiracial individuals throughout the state. Plecker studied county and state records and proceeded to enforce interracial marriage prohibitions and educational segregation based on family names and other genealogical information. Without these classifications, his efforts would have been far more difficult. Clearly these categories, used to enforce slavery laws, anti-miscegenation laws, the one-drop rule, and the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II were not created for the greater good of humanity.

Over the last year in California, the Racial Privacy Initiative, which would have banned collection of racial data by the state, came under heavy criticism and attack by medical social justice groups over the collection of racial data for medical purposes. As a member of the steering committee of the Racial Privacy Initiative, I read thousands of words of objection from such organizations on this topic. These opponents of the Racial Privacy Initiative, organized as the Coalition for an Informed California, were surprisingly successful in scaring voters into thinking that they would be susceptible to horrible, disease-wracked lives without these arbitrary, junk science racial classifications. Through references to statistical studies that confuse racial susceptibility to disease with cultural and individual practices, such as traditional diets and exercise, these social justice groups were able to paint quite a stark picture of life without the collection of racial data. In the process of making this argument, the proponents of collecting racial data for medical use have unwittingly perpetuated the myth of biologically inferior so-called minority races. However, recent discoveries in genetic science have revealed that race is not a biologically measurable entity (Hohman). Such discoveries have vindicated the tireless work of the late physical anthropologist Ashley Montagu, who tirelessly promoted the idea that race exists solely as a social construct. For decades, Dr. Montagu argued in print and lectures that racial classifications were based on junk science, not solid scientific theory (73).

These racial classifications are not now, nor have they ever, been based on genetic science. For the most part, health data culled by race is collected via one of two methods. The first method of data collection is accomplished via racial check-boxes, which usually require respondents to check only one racial classification. Such a data collection scheme is flawed for multiple reasons. First, how many people really attempt to include all of their ancestry on such forms? Those individuals who don’t disclose all of their respective racial classifications, as they are used by our government, are skewing the statistics through the inclusion of incomplete data. Further, how many respondents check the boxes based on their perception of racial identity, rather than the totality of their known family tree? Second, most forms that actually allow multiple race responses are not tallied in the same manner the data is submitted. For most purposes, multiple race data is collapsed into one racial category, regardless of how many boxes were checked. The multiple race respondent is assigned to the most under-represented of the racial demographics disclosed by that individual. Any other racial classifications an individual designated will then be ignored. This practice of single category collapsing was established via federal policy during the 1997 Census Bureau negotiations with stakeholder entities (Graham and Landrith 1999). How exactly is this data supposed to be accurate if it is intentionally left incomplete?

Further invalidating the medical necessity argument, much of this data is recorded via the perverse eye-balling method where the data recorder looks at an individual and guesses their so-called racial designation. Clearly, this is not a sound scientific basis for making qualified medical decisions. Nor can this method produce quality data regarding the occurrence of health issues among specific populations as this method is obviously subject to the personal biases and experiences of the individual performing the guesswork.

Many proponents of racial classifications believe that abolishing these categories will allow racism to multiply unchecked. Supporters of racial classifications want the public to believe that abolishing the categories will bring back the horrors of Jim Crow. As Jim Crow was a system of government enforced legal segregation and oppression based on racial classification, this is obviously contradictory. In order to return to such a repressive Jim Crow environment, statutes that have been repealed or ruled unconstitutional for decades would need to be passed into law once again. While this is simply not going to happen, it hasn’t stopped the supporters of racial classifications from employing scare tactics in defense of their message of continued government sponsored racial classification.

In my years of advocacy on behalf of interracial families and multiracial individuals, I have gradually come to believe that continuing to force people into little boxes for the purpose of fighting racism is destined to fail. These nasty little boxes were designed from day one to keep people separated for the purpose of ensuring legislative power in slave states and a permanent involuntary workforce. The government cannot fight racism while simultaneously promoting the concept of different-ness through the use of racial classifications.

Due to the arbitrary standards employed in the collection of this data and the potential for its abuse, the practice should be abandoned. Further, government emphasis on such collection lends a false atmosphere of legitimacy to this divisive practice. Rather than discouraging racism, such a de facto endorsement by government only serves to further entrench these beliefs and practices in general society. This final vestige of our shameful slavery heritage must be abandoned if we are to progress past our shameful beginnings. The continued existence of these categories is a disturbing reminder of a period in American history that shames us still today.

Annotated Bibliography and Works Cited

Graham, Susan and Landrith, James. “Blood Pressure.” The Multiracial Activist. Feb. 1999. 10 Jan. 2004. <http://www.multiracial.com/news/bloodpressure.html>

This report summarized the results of the racial classifications revisions issued by the Office of Management and Budget.

Hohman, Kimberly. “Race and the Human Genome.” About.com. 15 Feb. 2001 10 Jan. 2004. <http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa021501a.htm>

This article discusses the use of DNA science to debunk the myth of biological, static human races.

Montagu, Ashley. Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, 1964.

This book debunks the myth of static, biological human races through the use of anthropological and biological science data.

Plecker, Walter. “Letter to Local Registrars.” Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics. Richmond, VA: 1943.

This letter was sent to local registrars in the state of Virginia in an effort to expose, persecute and disenfranchise multiracial Virginia citizens.

Spencer, Rainier. Spurious Issues. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.

This book discusses the campaign for establishing a multiracial classification on the Census and other government forms of racial data classification.

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