Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
Is Kim Kardashian white?

Is Kim Kardashian white?

Last updated on: October 3, 2016 at 7:57 am by Jane the Actuary

Is Kim Kardashian white? 2016-10-03T07:57:13-06:00 Jane the Actuary

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Maybe not.

That is, according to a USA Today article, the Census Bureau is proposing adding a new racial category to the census, to cover Middle Eastern & North African-origin people, who up to now had been defined as “white.” According to the article,

Under the proposal, the new Middle East and North African designation — or MENA, as it’s called by population scholars — is broader in concept than Arab (an ethnicity) or Muslim (a religion). It would include anyone from a region of the world stretching from Morocco to Iran, and including Syrian and Coptic Christians, Israeli Jews and other religious minorities.

But the Census Bureau, which has been quietly studying the issue for two years, also has gotten caught up in debates about some groups — such as Turkish, Sudanese and Somali Americans — who aren’t included in that category. Those are issues the White House is trying to resolve before adding the box on 2020 census forms.

But, of course, if you think about it, it’s rather odd that Turks wouldn’t be included if Syrians or Iranians, say, are (the Turks are hardly European!), and the Turks and Armenians are neighbors, after all — Armenia may be its own country now, but the Armenians killed in the Genocide, and those who fled in its aftermath, were an ethnic minority in Turkey. Hence, it doesn’t seem a stretch to say that Kim Kardashian, of Armenian ancestry, could be declared non-white.

(And what about the Kurds? And Jews now living in Israel who had immigrated from Europe — but whose ancestors, millennia ago, left the Middle East? Or Jews now living in Europe, but, of course, with ancestors from the Middle East?)

And why are they making this change? For a variety of political reasons — in order to count Middle Easterners and Arabs, to determine whether a congressional district needs to be gerrymandered on their behalf, for example, or to determine if they’re being discriminated against, or measure their health outcomes or income relative to other groups. And for a feel-good reason, because many such individuals don’t like being labelled as “white.”

The impact? If nothing else, all those predictions about whites becoming a minority — that is, less than 50% of the population — come true a lot sooner. But this reclassification is likewise an indicator of the ultimate meaninglessness of these categories, and the fact that they are all about politics, not anything that has any real “truth” behind it.

But what’s peculiar about this article in particular is that this is actually old news — or, at least, Pew reported that the Census Bureau started the process of making this change over a year ago. And what’s also interesting is that they are, according to this older article, no longer using the word “race” at all, just asking, “Which categories describe [the respondent]?” Those categories are:

White
Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin
Black or African American
Asian
American Indian or Alaska Native
Middle Eastern or North African
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
Some other race, ethnicity, or origin

Which does’t remedy my old gripe that “Hispanic” really ought to be renamed and ought to be a matter of whether your origin is (primarily) that of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, not asking about the language of your country of origin. I suppose the new question seems to have eliminated the requirement, to be “American Indian,” that one be registered with a tribe, since the sample language in the Pew article suggests that Mayan or Aztec are possible “American Indian” categories, so that a Guatemalan, say, who identifies primarily as indigenous and not as a Spanish speaker, would perhaps be expected to check “American Indian.” (Though it’s hard to believe someone would do so.) But what about the typical immigrant from a Mexican village, of mostly indigenous ancestry?

Anyway, it’s all very silly.

Yes, there are historic uses of the concept of “race” in the United States: “black” meaning someone with dark skin color, from subsaharan African, “Oriental” referring to Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and others with an “Oriental” appearance with characteristic eyes.

And the Census Bureau has constantly tinkered with the adjustments to its labels — see this 2012 Slate article, which describes old categories such as octoon, and incidentally observes that the “Hispanic” category can be selected by those with a strong “Hispanic” identity as well as those who feel no attachment at all but are just trying to follow the instructions.

But it does make the whole concept of the United States becoming “majority minority” pretty irrelevant, if that’s the case only because the Definers of who counts as a “minority” determinedly preserve and expand that category when assimilation and intermarriage would have otherwise moved people steadily into the “white” label.

My preference? Re-write the question as follows:

From what major geographical region do you or your ancestors originate? If your ancestors have themselves migrated from one region to another in the recent past*, use their original region. If your ancestors have come from multiple regions, use the predominant one.

(*By which I mean Argentines whose ancestors hailed from Germany, or South Africans with Dutch ancestry, or Kenyan nationals with Indian ancestry, for example; you might have a better way of phrasing this than “recent past.”)

And then you can provide choices such as Europe, North Africa, Subsaharan Africa, Middle East, Asia, North America, Central/South America, and the Pacific Islands. Heck, you can follow this up with a second box for people to mark their “secondary ancestry” in the case of biracial folks.

That gives us meaningful information, without keeping the Census Bureau in the business of defining and perpetuating concepts of “race.”

image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKim_Kardashian_2%2C_2012.jpg; Eva Rinaldi [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Uncategorized

census

ethnicity

Previous Post

October 1, 2016

Who is "financial aid" for?

Next Post

October 3, 2016 From the library: Fail U.; The False Promise of Higher Education, by Charles J. Sykes

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Actuarial/Retirement Issues Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 August 2021 June 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

I am twelve stones taken from a riverbed and set up as a memorial to a miraculous crossing. What am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The memorial stones The Stones of remembrance Altar stones Bethel