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The Meaning of Race in a 21st-Century America

In: Social Issues

Submitted By kdtn2793
Words 2168
Pages 9
Kristy Nguyen
JOUR453 Spring 2014
The Meaning of Race in a 21st-Century America As far as America has come in the battle for equality and improving civil rights, the topic of race still looms over our nation and sparks many different debates. The division of the 21st-century isn’t as obvious as it used to be in the past, there are no “Whites Only” sign to direct us and the simplistic black-white concept of race no longer exists. The issue lies much deeper than we could ever imagine and its fast-paced change is making it difficult to comprehend. The increase in the multiracial population further adds to the complexity of this topic and our ideas on race. That is why Center for American Progress located in Washington, D.C. decided to tackle this matter head-on by opening an in-depth panel discussion entitled “The Meaning of Race in a 21st-Century America” to dig into America’s history to find the origins of race, address race and ethnicity today as the nation’s demographics are shifting, and emphasize the importance of the U.S. Census to accurately represent the people of this. Featured panelists included Rinku Sen, President and Executive Director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation; Julie Dowling, Associate Professor, Department of Latina/Latino Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Roderick Harrison, Senior Research Fellow, Civic Engagement and Governance Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; and Hilary O. Shelton, Washington Bureau Director and Senior Vice President for Advocacy for NAACP. Vanessa Cardenas, Vice President of Progress 2050 at Center American Progress, served as the moderator.
In order to move the race conversation forward, we must look back in time at history and examine the origins of race to understand how America got to the point it is at today. Before the 20th-century, people believed that each racial and ethnic group’s biology was permanent and turned to religion or theories of natural history in search of an answer as to why there were these different groups. Contrary to those beliefs back then, we know now that race and ethnicity are two distinct categories in which race pertains to biological features such as skin, eye, and hair color, while ethnicity relates to sociological factors like nationality, culture, language and beliefs. America’s government has since condensed race and ethnicity down to five categories: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White. It also includes two categories on ethnicity: “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino.” Panelist Roderick Harrison traced back to the beginning when the history of America began to unfold and how race served as a key factor in shaping and developing this country. The people needed an organized way to count the population and deem them as citizens under the formulating Constitution. Harrison stated, “The measurement of population begins with the constitution requirement. Race immediately enters as to who will be a citizen.” It was decided that blacks would count for three fifths of a person in the South in order for political power to be balanced between the North and South. This automatically and immediately distinguish them as a separate racial group in both the Constitution and the early censuses. Julie Dowling then spoke up on how the classification of Latinos and Hispanics came to be. She said, “We have this separation between Hispanic origins and other races. And it’s because of the history of not wanting to be racialized.” Mexican-Americans at that time were facing harsh discrimination and desired to combat the segregation that they were facing so they did not want to be a category in the census. In that same year, they fought long and hard to get that classification removed and it was eventually replaced with “Hispanic origin” in 1970 to embody a broader population that included different ethnicities. Dowling leads us to understand why the two categories of ethnicity, “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino,” still exist today. From the information that Harrison and Dowling shared, it can be observed that it was not an easy road to get to where we are today and that these racial categories “carry considerable historical weight.” Thomas C. Holt, author of “The Problem of Race in the Twenty-First Century,” offers the basis that race classification, and ultimately racism, spurs from past events like slavery, colonization, segregation, discrimination, and immigration. Holt’s ideology supports Harrison’s explanation of how the division of blacks came to be because slavery and colonization directly played a role in that. And in Dowling’s account, Hispanic classification derived from immigration and their experiences of discrimination. These historical occurrences, although so long ago, still undoubtedly affect and characterize relations between racialized groups in America today. The Center of American Progress panel touches upon how the U.S. Census plays an incredibly significant role on how we view race and the social policies that shape our nation. Up until 1960, there was a huge discrepancy on the census data on race because an enumerator, a person whose job is to count and collect data, filled the census form for other people. The enumerators would check the box based on what they perceived the person to be and this was a very inaccurate method. When people were eventually able to identify themselves, the census became much more representative of the population. With the information on race being more accurate, the use of the census data is not just to count people anymore but has a much greater mission in serving America’s population. Hilary Shelton points out that it allows the government, “everybody from the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, [Department of] Education, Health and Human services,” to look at how effective existing programs and laws are to the people and if change is needed. Jean Cheng, a co-producer of PBS’s “RACE- The Power of an Illusion,” states that in the past, the census was a way to discriminate and put restrictions on certain races like, for example, the Chinese Exclusion Act that was a law regulating the Chinese population. Today, the census has a positive impact in the lives of Americans by not only assisting the government to create better programs that serve them, but Cheng says, “Rather than counting in order to exclude, census numbers help us measure who is being excluded and what we are doing about it.” The use of the U.S. Census is an important tool in helping us to move away from inequality. Although the U.S. Census intends to help Americans and their communities, there are issues behind it pertaining to race that the panel brings attention to. Panelist Dowling tells us that in her research, she found that about half of Latinos mark “White” on the census and the other half marks “Other Race.” Dowling conducted interviews and it turns out that the Latinos who decided to identify as “White” generally did not do it out of denial of their own race, but out of the desire for the U.S. to recognize that they are citizens and to avoid experiencing issues like discrimination or the questioning of whether they were an illegal immigrant. “It was about saying ‘I am an American citizen… I don’t want to be discriminated against,” she stated. Panelist Rinkyu Sen then points out that the broad categories in the census of certain races and ethnicity may keep the data simple, but acts as a flaw in representing the people. Consolidating racial groups, giving the six top Asian categories as an example, under one umbrella would exclude people and communities that are “struggling and need the backup of data in order to do their advocacy work.” Sen strongly states, “Race as a social construct remains so critical to the way that we relate to each other, the way our institutions run, the way our politics happen, that we have to keep having a census that is sensitive to those dynamics and that helps us have the data we need to do the best we can in terms of equity and inclusion.” The U.S. Census is important and has the power to take the lead in redefining the meaning of race, but panelists warn of potential problems if not approached in a better way. One of the biggest demographic changes that America is experiencing that adds to the complexity of the race issue is the growth of the multicultural, mixed-race population. Dowling, as a mixed-race person herself, admits that it complicates our understanding of race when the lines begin to blur. Author Faral Chideya of the book “The Color of Our Future” would agree with Dowling, calling it a topic that is a “huge political headache for the Census Bureau” because implementing the category of “Other” is simply not enough, and often times, selecting more than one race is not an option. It was proposed to have broader racial categories as an approach, but it can be recalled that panelist Sen points out that that may put struggling people and communities at a disadvantage more than help the overall cause. This also poses as an issue especially in respect to government programs because multiracial people may not be accurately represented, therefore not effectively served. The complexity of this topic definitely goes way beyond just the label as Chideya says, “No new label alone will be able to eliminate the inconsistencies of race or free us from prejudices we’ve battled in America for centuries.” However, the Center for American Progress would argue that because there is a growing mixed-race population, the concept of racial and ethnic identity is more fluid than ever before. Krystale Littlejohn also sees the change, although complicated, as more so having a positive influence on the topic of race overall. She says, “With the legitimation of mixed race identities, some argue that we have moved to the opposite end of the spectrum: from rigid single-race categories toward a celebration of mixed race identity as a political solution to the thorny issue of race.” However we view the growing mixed-race population, one panelist brings up the point that the problem with race overall is structural and institutional, so mixing race may not necessarily mean the problems will go away. America was not built or populated by just one race and Center for American Progress knows that in order to move forward as a multiracial nation, we need to educated ourselves and openly discuss the issues surrounding race and ethnicity. One of the biggest takeaways of this panel discussion is that in order to solve any problems in this country, we must measure it and the U.S. Census has become one of the greatest tools in helping us shift away from racial inequality. Panelist Sen makes a compelling statement, saying, “We have to remember that in the true definitions of race, there isn’t anything biological about those definitions. There isn’t any inherent difference between human beings in our genetic makeup. But race remains and we have to keep having a census to improve equity and inclusion.” Although considered a post-racial country, it is reminded that inequality and separation of racial groups still exist today. We simply cannot settle at being “diverse.” With the change in demographics that we continually see, we must find tangible solutions and approaches in order to serve all the people that contribute to making America a strong nation that bases itself on the fundamental idea of equality.

Bibliography
Books

1. Holt, Thomas C. The Problem of Race in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Print. 2. Chideya, Farai. The Color of Our Future. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Print

Online News

3. Littlejohn, Krystale. "The Clayman Institute for Gender Research." Gender News. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. <http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2012/racing-%E2%80%9Cmixed-race%E2%80%9D-21st-century>. 4. Allen, Reniqua. "Our 21st-century segregation: we're still divided by race."theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 3 Apr. 2013. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/21st-century-segregation-divided-race> 5. Cheng, Jean. “RACE - The Power of an Illusion”PB, Web. Mar. 2014.< http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-03-01.htm>

Scholarly Publications 6. National Research Council (US) Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life; Anderson NB, Bulatao RA, Cohen B, editors. Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2004. 2, Racial and Ethnic Identification, Official Classifications, and Health Disparities.Available from: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25522/> 7. Morning, Ann. "Toward a Sociology of Racial Conceptualization for the 21st Century." NYU.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. <http://as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1043/Racial_Conceptualization.pdf>.

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