Today, we, meaning the United States, commonly use the following categories to classify a person's race, both in the census as well as countless documents: white, black or African American, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, or Pacific Islander. There is a separate question that identifies someone as Latino or non-Latino, since one can be Latino and either white or black or brown; it is thus not a racial category. Note, however, that if a Latino is of Central or South American Indian descent, there is no race category that fits. They are stuck with using "some other race."
People would be surprised, and white supremacists shocked, to learn that the U.S. Census defines "white" as "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa." People who are Middle Eastern or North African are thus categorized as "white" by the Census. This is based on the classic definition of "Caucasian" used when the first racial categories were established in the 1700s. At some point afterwards, "white" was often used instead of Caucasian.
Clearly, "white" does not mean what white supremacists and people in general think.
But beyond that fact, the classification of "white" is a misnomer in another, obvious way. "White," even if confined in many people's mind to mean of European descent, covers a broad range of skin colors from the pale skin of northern Europeans to the darker tones of southern or Mediterranean Europeans. Many "whites" are also thus people of color in the broadest sense.
Why then this term, "white?" One could say that the change recognized that the science behind the phrase "Caucasian" was debunked a long time ago. I suggest, however, that it became common usage because it simply and graphically expressed the difference between and superiority of people of European descent compared with the people they colonized. White is pure and in stark contrast to color.
Since much of the justification for the global colonial enterprise was based on racial superiority, the stark difference between white and all other categories served its purpose. Also, the categories are interesting in that if you were white, it didn't matter what your ethnicity was – you were superior. On the other hand, if you were black, it didn't matter what your ethnicity was, you were inferior. Likewise, if you were Asian, it made no difference what your country of ancestry was, you were inferior..
This post does not pretend to have any impact on racism, because racism has nothing to do with semantics or logic. Instead, the post has to do with how the government collects data on people, which ultimately influences how we, the average person, categorize people.
The government can change the way it classifies people. The OMB had proposed changes to the race and ethnicity questions for the 2020 Census, but they were overruled by the Trump administration.
But although those proposed changes would have brought more nuance and coherence to the resulting data, combining race and ethnicity in one question, we would still have been left with the use of the category "white." Given that "white" is not a word that is descriptive of the people in that category, in effect the government is saying that if you're not black, or Asian, etc, then you're white; you're not one of them. This is not helpful from any rational perspective.
Why then does the government keep using the term? I suspect because it is embedded in so many documents and the minds of so many.
But beyond this question of semantics, why does the government still have a question that seeks to identify race? Race theory has been thoroughly debunked and discredited. We need to get everyone away from the idea that race impacts, in and of itself, what becomes of people. What does impact people's future is the culture that they come from and remain part of, and the way people react to it.
There is precedent in the current Census questions to make the switch from race to culture, We use the category "Asian" and "Pacific Islander" not because that is their race or country or identifies where they were born, but because of their ancestry and their culture; how they self-identify.
Black or African American is of data value not because it defines one's race, but defines one's culture. So we wouldn't lose any valuable data by making this switch. Also, practically speaking, many racists are really more against blacks because of their perceived culture than the color of their skin. Their blackness is just an easy, short-hand, way of registering that prejudice.
It would also solve the awkward situation of Latinos who are not white or black but of Indian stock having no race category that fits them. .
I would therefore suggest that we say what we in fact mean when referring to "whites," and use the term "European-American" instead of "white." There is no white race or culture. There is a European culture. People who are Middle Eastern or North African should have a separate category, as was proposed, not European.
While I dislike categories like "Italian-American" because we are all American, for this purpose I think it is valid because someone's culture is a hybrid of the country of ancestry and the United States. We are all Americans, but from a cultural standpoint, we are all hybrids. Thus I would use the term "European-American."
I recognize that there are many subcultures for each of these cultures. There is, for example. no one black or Asian culture. Through cross-referencing other census data on an individual's education, location, SES, and country of ancestry, a rough approximation of the subcultures should be able to be gleaned.
Recognizing that culture is really the defining factor, not race, in what people make of their lives is also important because it makes clear that regardless one's race, it is your cultural habits and perceptions that are determinative of your opportunities and future. Making this change is thus empowering, because each person can change their culture, or aspects of it; they cannot change their race.
It is past time for the Census to stop gathering information on race, which is of questionable use, and instead to focus on information about a person's culture which is more determinative.
