Comedian Amer Zahr’s upcoming documentary challenges how the last Census classified Arab-Americans—as white—in the hopes that the next one will be different. But he’s not the only one who believes the nation’s decennial count misclassifies or just plain erases their identities. According to AJA, Hispanics comprise 90 percent of the 20 million individuals who, during the 2010 Census, checked “some other race.” Capturing how Americans increasingly do (or don’t) identify themselves matters as the Census determines everything from the apportionment of congressional districts to the distribution of $400 billion in federal aid programs and the enforcement of civil rights laws.
http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/07/arab-americans_tell_census_were_not_white.htmlThoughts? Personally, I think the census should just get rid of the race category altogether and replace it with ethnicity. That accurately reflects the whole classification of people are significant mostly as a social identity, insomuch as it matters because of the way people identify and are treated, not because of obscure 'scientific' differences.