Apr 09 2010
Rich Benjamin on Race, White Fear, and the U.S. Census
In mid-March households began receiving their 2010 U.S. Census form, a 10 question survey touted as the shortest in Census history. A long, multi-faceted government campaign to promote compliance has been underway since the Fall of 2008, and census workers will begin a door-to-door enumeration efforts this month. Every ten years the Census begins amid controversy, and this year is no different, as it provokes debate about contentious issues such as immigration, race and ethnicity, and privacy rights. Latino groups have been divided, some calling for a boycott until there is comprehensive immigration reform. Questions about race and ethnicity leave many irked by terms used in the form, such as the inclusion of “Negro.” Others feel that their identity is not represented by the limited choices. For the first time ever the Census bureau has asked same sex couples to check the married box if they feel it best reflects their relationship, regardless of any legal recognition of their partnership. Many on the Right have stirred up conspiracy theories, and called for boycotts of the census for a range of reasons. GOP chairman Michael Steele said the President had plans to rig the Census. Rush Limbaugh recently stated that Republican areas are being deliberately skipped by the Census bureau. Ron Paul expressed the views of many when he denounced the longer-form 14-question American Community Survey, which is randomly sent to a limited number of residences, as insulting. Paul took a dark view of the additional questions regarding transportation habits, access to electricity and running water, and finances, saying, “One can only imagine the countless malevolent ways our federal bureaucrats could use this information.”
GUEST: Richard Benjamin, Senior Fellow at Demos and author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America”
One Response to “Rich Benjamin on Race, White Fear, and the U.S. Census”
Recently, I found the 2010 Census form hanging on my door. As I began filling it out, I came across a dilemma. The U.S. government wants to know if my children are adopted or not and it wants to know what our races are. Being adopted myself, I had to put “Other” and “Don’t Know Adopted” for my race and “Other” and “Don’t Know” for my kids’ races.
Can you imagine not knowing your ethnicity, your race? Now imagine walking into a vital records office and asking the clerk for your original birth certificate only to be told “No, you can’t have it, it’s sealed.”
How about being presented with a “family history form” to fill out at every single doctor’s office visit and having to put “N/A Adopted” where life saving information should be?
Imagine being asked what your nationality is and having to respond with “I don’t know”.
It is time that the archaic practice of sealing and altering birth certificates of adopted persons stops.
Adoption is a 5 billion dollar, unregulated industry that profits from the sale and redistribution of children. It turns children into chattel who are re-labeled and sold as “blank slates”.
Genealogy, a modern-day fascination, cannot be enjoyed by adopted persons with sealed identities. Family trees are exclusive to the non-adopted persons in our society.
If adoption is truly to return to what is best for a child, then the rights of children to their biological identities should NEVER be violated. Every single judge that finalizes an adoption and orders a child’s birth certificate to be sealed should be ashamed of him/herself.
I challenge all readers: Ask the adopted persons that you know if their original birth certificates are sealed.