Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?

Stephen Barnard (steve@megafauna.com)
Sun, 29 Sep 1996 16:43:09 -0800

Bob Whitaker wrote:
>
> Stephen Barnard wrote:
> >
> > There is a proposal to include "multiracial" as a category in the US
> > census. As I understand it, African-American and Hispanic groups
> > generally oppose this because it might erode their representation in the
> > census. But what is someone to do if, for example, they have immediate
> > Jewish, Korean, and Phillipino ancestry? Such cases are not unheard
> > of. (BTW, Jewish is not a racial category because it is "religious".)
> >
> > There is a very strong tendency toward "outbreeding" in Asian and
> > Hispanic communities, but much less so among African Americans. Someone
> > has suggested that the black/non-black distinction is the only racial
> > categorization that "matters" in the US, so that should be the only
> > categorization in the census. I don't know if I agree with that, but I
> > do think that the current form is pretty ridiculous. About 45% of it is
> > devoted to determining a racial classification in some way. For
> > example, if you are Hispanic then you are expected to distinguish
> > between all sorts of subcategories, including (quaintly) "Spanish".
> >
> > If race is a myth then it shouldn't be part of the census. Even if it
> > isn't a myth then a case can be made that it shouldn't be part of the
> > census.
> >
> > Steve Barnard
>
> In case you hadn't noticed, the "anti-racists"(anti-whties) are
> perfectly consistent about this: the white race exoists if they are
> saying something nasty about it, it does not exist if someone is saying
> something good about it.
> More generally, the "anti-racists" always insist that race exists
> when they want quotas, integration, to to chase down whites who don't
> want to associate with nonwhites with "low-cost" housing, or white
> majority countries which want to restrict immigration. This is all
> "white racism" and race is pushed by them to "cure" it.
> When it is pointed out that all their ethnic balance programs are
> targetted at whites, suddenly the white race is impossible to define and
> suddenly ceases to exist once again.
> I can't believe you hadn't noticed that.

I don't like your tone, but you probably don't care about that.

Race is a burning, divisive issue in the US. I wish we could just put
it behind us and get on with life, but that isn't likely to happen any
time soon.

Personally, my feeling is that racially-oriented political groups do
more harm than good. There are serious historical inequities in race
relationships in the US, primarily with respect to blacks vs.
non-blacks, but I feel that group identity and special privileges based
on race are counterproductive. There is plenty of room for honest
disagreement, so I hope I don't get flamed as a racist. I fully support
government and private action to improve education for disadvantaged
children (regardless of race) and to retard the modern trend toward
income disparity.

Some of the most insightful thinking on this topic that I've seen is
from Shelby Steele.

Steve Barnard