AP News – Published By: Mike Schneider
Nyhiem Way is weary of people conflating African American and Black. Shalini Parekh wants a way for South Asian people to identify themselves differently from East Asians with roots in places like China or Japan. And Byron Haskins wants the U.S. to toss racial and ethnic labels altogether.
“When you set up categories that are used to place people in boxes, sometimes you miss the truth of them,” said Haskins, who describes himself as African American.
Way, Parekh, and Haskins’ voices are among more than 4,600 comments pending before the Biden administration as it contemplates updating the nation’s racial and ethnic categories for the first time since 1997.
There’s a lot to consider.
Some Black Americans want their ancestors’ enslavement recognized in how they are identified. Some Jewish people believe their identity should be seen as its own ethnic category and not only a religion. The idea of revising categories for ethnic and racial identities, both in the census and in gathering demographic information between head counts, has fueled editorials and think-tank essays as well as thousands of written comments by individuals in what is almost a Rorschach test for how Americans identify themselves. Read more
