Category Archives: USA
2010 Census…Answering the Race Question
What does it take to be a census worker? If your answer involved the ability to read pre-scripted statements from a piece of paper and refuse to answer direct questions, you’d be damningly correct. At 4:36 PM CST I called the Census Bureau to clarify their expectations regarding Question #9, which inquires about one’s race. This question is problematic both in their decision to ask it and in answer expectations, but I’ll elaborate on that a bit later. First, the call:
4:36 PM CST
Call placed. The automated system cannot understand me, and after several failed tries declares that it will connect me with an employee.
4:39 PM CST
Connected to the employee, where I ask about what constitutes an acceptable answer to race. She reads an official answer that does not address my question (included below), prompting me to repeat myself. She then says that she cannot answer my question, and to put whatever I want.
4:42 PM CST
I declare that my concern is being legally compliant, and I would thus like to speak with somebody who can indicate whether my intended answer is legal or not.
4:43 PM CST
The second employee indicates that there is no illegal answer to the question, my only obligation is to answer it. She goes on to claim that I can even make up a race if I like.
Now, why is it that I have a question about race? Should that not be exceedingly straightforward?
Put simply, the issue with categorizing oneself by race stems from race being a social construct. This is demonstrated aptly by the fact that there is no universally accepted definition of race, and that there is likewise no uniformity of opinion on what constitutes a racial group and how many exist. This is perhaps most notably demonstrated by the fluidity of our racial categories over the history of the Census.
As Jeff Jacoby notes, we’ve vastly expanded our racial category options:
In 1850, the Census Bureau divided Americans into “white,’’ “black,’’ and “mulatto’’; by 1890, it was classifying “Japanese’’ and “Chinese’’ as races, along with “Negro,’’ “mulatto,’’ “quadroon,’’ “octoroon,’’ and “white.’’ Based on this year’s enumeration, the government proudly announces, “Tabulations will be available for 63 race categories — six single-race categories and 57 different combinations of two or more races.’’
If you’re wondering how there are 63 racial categories now, then let us look at what the Census Bureau has to say:
The Census Bureau collects race data in accordance with guidelines provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and these data are based on self-identification. The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country, and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically or genetically. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as “American Indian and White.” People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.
In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include both racial and national origin or socio-cultural groups. You may choose more than one race category.
As you can see, their definition is exceedingly unhelpful. They acknowledge that their is no biological, anthropological, or genetic standard by which they are defining as race, but that instead the definition shall be the product of social standards. This assumes a national uniformity that does not exist, an acceptance of questionable consensus standards, and attaching oneself to a label whose boundaries are rendered fluid by virtue of their function as a sub-category of something as mutating in definition as race is. More at issue though is the decision to include “national origin” or “socio-cultural groups” as valid identifiers of race, for it would seem to sanction a massive range of answers that in both social and historical context would not fit what the average person understands to be a race. “Korean” is a nationality and “Hmong” is an ethnicity, yet the census lists the former as an option and the latter as an example of an acceptable expansion upon the “Other Asian” choice.
By this standard then, I could readily identify as American, for I was born here. Some conservatives have considered this very idea, and seem to believe it technically legal. And Jacoby agrees, noting that the New York Times endorsed this very notion in the mid-19th century. Of course, I’m a first generation American, the product of legal immigration. Being of Canadian stock, I might then identify under that category instead. But is isn’t as though my family spent centuries in Canada. We fled there from what is now Belarus in the early 20th century, so Belarusian might seem more fitting. Based on the history of said region though, I might just as easily identify as Lithuanian, Polish, or Russian for at one time or another they all occupied said land before my family escaped. The Russians had the most recent control, so identifying as Russian might make the most sense. Complicating the picture though is that fact that my family is most likely not from Belarus, but settled there at some period during the Russian occupation, at which time Russian simultaneously held a multitude of other neighboring territories, any one of them being potential historic homes of my family.
Given how confusing national origin would prove, I might instead identify as being of a socio-cultural group. At the most basic level, that might mean identifying as either Jewish or Semitic. Either should clearly be a valid answer, for just over two decades ago, the US Supreme Court acknowledged Jews as a being part of a racial category separate from Caucasians. This could further justify me describing myself as either Ashkenazi for specificity’s sake, or as Israeli, Hebrew, Egyptian, or Iraqi based on the national origin criteria stated above and Jewish history. Obviously, the national origin identification choices are even more absurd than before, for I am much more removed from any of those lands than Belarus or Canada. Ashkenazi seems equally poor, for it is a better indicator of how frequently I recite Birkat Ha’Kohein and what I consider chametz than anything else. That theoretical value is expunged outright by my atheism.
So why not save myself the mental energy and identify simply as Jewish? After all, the Census is said to collect data for statistical purposes, and will neither be linked to the individual nor freely divulged in a way that threatens privacy. Or at least that is the official claim. History though tells us a much different story. In 1942, Congress passed the Second War Powers Act, which required that”any information or data” be collected by the Census Bureau be made available to other government entities. It is well established that this enabled the government to more easily locate and intern Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. More recently, the Department of Homeland Security collected Census data on Arab-Americans, which we know only through a FOIA petition from EPIC. Given then that the cause for concern extends beyond general distrust of an overreaching government, and there are multiple examples of outright abuse, I have no desire to identify as such on my form.
Many would suggest then that I identify as White. But I see two substantial problems with this. First, as mentioned earlier, I am bothered by the notion of embracing a social construct to placate government workers. Even if I accepted the notion of race, and that White was the logical choice, I would remain hesitant, for virtue of the simple fact that I’m Jewish enough to not be White in the eyes of a disturbingly large percentage of the population. But second, and perhaps more importantly, I do not wish to provide said answer for the very reason that the inquiry on race is pernicious. Look at the official justification for said inquiry:
Information on race is required for many Federal programs and is critical in making policy decisions, particularly for civil rights. States use these data to meet legislative redistricting principles. Race data also are used to promote equal employment opportunities and to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks.
If you cut past the rhetorical efforts to make this seem positive by citing “civil rights” and “equal opportunity” issues, the meaning is rather clear: tell us your race so that we can better interfere in your community and use race-related issues to justify doing so. Even if we are to assume it will be used only in service of every liberal’s favorite example of what makes this necessary, the Voting Rights Act, it remains objectionable. While laudable in helping to enfranchise Black voters, the VRA has also been widely cited as justification for affirmative racial gerrymandering. That is, while our courts have held that redistricting efforts that diminish the political power of minorities are impermissible, no such restriction extends to redistricting in such a way as to optimally concentrate minorities into voting regions that give them more power. In practice, this leads to the creation of majority-minority districts, where a target percentage is to be Black or Hispanic, so as to ensure that candidates of said group are move viable, and that those groups at large can put their votes to better use. This is extremely objectionable, in that it leads to the creation of extremely odd shaped voting districts, the disproportionate influence of certain groups who are being extended special privilege, and has partisan implications. That last point is especially concerning, for Hispanics, and to a far greater extent Blacks, do not vote Republican. Thus, racial redistricting counts, as one of its major consequences, the creation of permanently Democratic seats, thereby negating the value of having actual elections.
So, knowing that specific racial information is liable to be exposed and abused, and objecting to both the notion or race and the available labels, how did I answer the question of race? I checked “Some other race” and wrote “No race” in the provided box. I am hoping that this does not yield a follow-up phone call or direct visit, but I certainly imagine it will. After all, while the workers I spoke with seemed to believe that however I identified would be valid, and I found “No race” the closest acceptable short answer, I should be compliant with the law. Yet, since my answer surely is not the sort they desire, mere compliance probably won’t end their harassment.
I mention legal compliance because of the United States Code, Title 13 (Census), Chapter 7 (Offenses and Penalties), SubChapter II:
221. Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers
* (a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.
* (b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.
* (c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person shall be compelled to disclose information relative to his religious beliefs or to membership in a religious body.
Though the Constitutional mandate for the Census does not mention race as required information, the Supreme Court has held that questions not explicitly included in the Constitution may still be made a mandatory component of the Census, such that legally speaking the above penalties could realistically be imposed on those who fail to answer or who inaccurately answer the Census. Rare as enforcement may be, the risk is higher than I care to assume given my financial limitations and desire to avoid even the remote prospect of imprisonment.
It is clear that we must, legally speaking, all fill out our Census forms, and we must indeed answer absurd questions such as those asking about race. But, short of not outright lying, there is no established guideline. So fill in whatever answer you find most comfortable, appreciating fully the consequences of giving the government certain answers, be it helped to undermine the democratic process or receiving further communications from their army of underinformed temp workers.
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Sotomayor the Latina Extremist
Earlier, I wrote about Obama’s pick for the next Supreme Court justice, token Latina candidate Sonia Sotomayor, focusing primarily on her numerous disturbing legal verdicts, mentioning only briefly the concern that ought to arise with regards to her bigotry. It seems that as more and more time passes though, additional information is coming out that makes evident her disturbing racial fanaticism.
First, looking at Sotomayor’s past, it appears that during those years she was earning her prestigious Ivy League credentials, she was also cutting her teeth in the world of radical leftist activism of the racialist variety. During her time at Princeton, she submitted a number of letters to the editor that were run in the Daily Princetonian. Among them is one where she decries the racism of her institution towards “Chicano” and “Puerto Rican” students. And what sort of discrimination was she speaking about? Not the sort witnessed at truly concerning universities such as Case Western, but one of affirmative action, or rather a lack of it. It seems that Sotomayor was, and it seems still is, of the opinion that being Chicano entitles somebody to special benefits and preference, so much so that institutions must actively recruit such candidates. Never mind that institutions like Princeton are, when positions exist, already overwhelmed by a number of qualified applicants for the position(s) in question, and thus would normally have no reason to actively recruit candidates. And for that matter, don’t bother considering how absurd it is that race, ethnicity or other irrelevant details that ought not define a person are being called for as a selection criteria, when if Caucasians were to demand such benefit anywhere (even at an HBCU), they would be branded racists and publicly shamed. Instead, what must be realized is that Sotomayor got her way and remained unhappy.
How do we know this? In 1974, Princeton hired a new minority dean. And by that, I don’t mean a dean that happened to be a minority, but rather a dean who was chosen in large measure because he was a minority (it was part of an affirmative action hire to calm down the campus radicals). The student committee, which was tasked with helping the university to make their selection, had six members. The race of sixth member was not noted, so based on the university’s demography, it is likely they were Caucasian. We do however know that the other members were three Blacks and two Latinos. And for the position, they chose a Latino candidate. Of course it should be noted that Sotomayor and a fellow racialist activist constituted the two Latino members, though she remained dissatisfied, marginalizing the substantial student input Princeton administrators solicited by way of her committee, and claiming that the position was scrutinized more closely than other hires. It goes without saying that these are both absurd claims on her part, especially with regards to the latter, for even if true, it would be appropriate. That is to say, in a normal hiring situation, where all interested individuals may seek a position, it is inevitable that qualified applications will appear, and the university will have multiple strong options to fill the existing void with a candidate for the aforementioned job. But, where the pool is restricted by artificial and superficial criteria that don’t speak to the relative merits of those in it (such as minority status), the quality of applicants is far less certain, and thus greater efforts must be made to ensure that even with the restrictive criteria in place, a suitable candidate can still be found.
Of course, one might ask why it is that Sotomayor, a clearly radical racialist, would be appointed to such a prominent position by the university. To answer that requires only two words: Accion Puertorriquena. Founded around the time she began her studies at Princeton, Accion Puertorriquena remains active on Princeton’s campus to this day, and it played a major role in expanding the academic offerings of the university relating to Latino culture and history. Whatever merit this is to that, its importance as a Latino student voice on campus, and more importantly as the Puerto Rican student voice on campus, is apparent in its use as a vehicle to harass Princeton into extreme affirmative action. That is, the group (or at the very least Sotomayor) was not so much interested in giving admissions preference to Latino students as much as it was actively recruiting said students. So important was race-based preference to the group that they insisted the university was obligated to incur substantial expense actively hunting for Latino candidates, even when they already had far more qualified applicants of numerous racial backgrounds than spaces. This of course is on top of their involvement with the Coalition Against Proposition 187 (Proposition 187, a 1994 California ballot measure (which seems strange for a New Jersey university group to be focused on…), was a ballot initiative designed to disallow welfare and other social aid benefits to illegal immigrants), which proves beyond a doubt their disturbing dedication to Latino racial radicalism.
Though political extremism is often a hallmark of youth soon abandoned, it seems that Sotomayor never changed. In 1980 she became a member of the Board of Directors for Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now called LatinoJustice PRLDEF), which has also always been driven by an agenda of advancing the situation of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos when they were not otherwise being mistreated or in need of help. Their origins however center on ensuring that Latinos need not learn English, as their first lawsuit in 1974 was Aspira v. New York City Board of Education, which resulted at the expansion of failed bilingual education programs over English immersion classes. And much like Accion Puertorriquena, their history is one of fighting for racial preference in admissions and hiring, and in the extension of social aid benefits to illegal and undocumented immigrants.
To this very day she is (or at least through 2000 when the American Bar Association profiled her was) a member of the National Council of La Raza. As with the other radical Latino organizations mentioned, they support racial preference in admissions and employment, social benefits (and drivers licenses!) for illegal immigrants, and substantial accommodation for those immigrants (legal or otherwise) that cannot speak the language. Disturbingly, that isn’t the worst thing about La Raza. They actively support and help run Latino charter schools that are hostile to the United States as a country, and non-Latino peoples in general. Take for instance Marcos Aguilar, Principal of La Academia Semillas del Pueblo (one such school they are connected to, who said who said “We don’t want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don’t need a White water fountain. . . . We are not interested in what they have because we have so much more and because the world is so much larger. And ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction.”
That she has been involved in not one, but three radical Latino organizations, all of them racist in their politics, is outright disturbing. That it was not merely a phase in her youth for which she has since apologized makes her an unacceptable candidate for the Supreme Court. Just as she was worried about diminished law enforcement credibility in the case of Thomas Pappas and his anonymous hate mail sent from his home, she should be worried that any verdict related to civil rights, immigration, or race will be viewed as suspect (with good cause) based on her own actions, which she does openly and without shame (thus making it problematic in a way that didn’t apply in the case she misruled on before).
What Others Are Saying
Atlas Shrugs: She has all the bells and whistles of a leftist candidate – Hispanic? Check! Female? Check! Compelling narrative that tugs at the heart? Check! Brain power? Irrelevant! The left doesn’t like too much brains, too much reason and intellect. It confuses them.
Liberally Conservative: Sotomayor is able to get away with her racist comments because she is a female minority. Imagine Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito making similar comments and not facing hell on earth in the press and at confirmation hearings.
New England Republican: It looks like Barack Obama was listening to Jeremiah Wright when the later was spewing his racist rhetoric those 20 years.
Neocon Express: To take a page from Jenine Garafalo, President Obama appointed a ‘stone cold’ racist and intellectual lightweight to the US Supreme Court this morning.
Stop the ACLU: If the Senate does not question her on her membership to a radical organization advocating racism, there will be a major outcry. Republicans better step up and grill this women before handing her one of the most important positions of power in the U.S.
Sultan Knish: By nominating Sotomayor, Obama is very clearly looking ahead to 2012, by first nominating an Hispanic Woman, secondly a left wing judicial advocate, more specifically one whose views on ballot access will help open up that golden box of millions of votes, and in the case of a Bush vs Gore type Supreme Court case, will always argue on the side of inadequate access.
Thomas Sowell: If you were going to have open-heart surgery, would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who was chosen because he had to struggle to get where he is, or by the best surgeon you could find — even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had every advantage that money and social position could offer? [...] The Supreme Court of the United States is in effect operating on the heart of our nation — the Constitution and the statutes and government policies that all of us must live under.
Tom Tancredo: I’m telling you she appears to be a racist. She said things that are racist in any other context, that’s exactly how we would portray it.
Tundra Tabloids: Obama is just doing what comes naturally, as a devout Leftist, he seeks judges that are activists in robes. If the congress won’t pass laws that socialists want, he’ll plant activist judges on the bench that will insist on by-passing the will of the people to placate the will of the few, the privliged of the Left.
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The Less Visible Threat – Stealth Jihad
Too often, political discourse is focused exclusively on the readily apparent, ignoring what lurks beneath the surface. For instance, in discussing the War on Terror, the emphasis is primarily on our two major theaters of combat, or on rare occasion the totalitarian ideology that inspires our enemy. Certainly, discussion of such things is important, for in a clash of civilizations we must understand the enemy, and we must critically review the steps taken to date in combat against them. Still, to limit discussion to those components of the War on Terror is detrimental to our cause, for we treat the theaters and the ideology as separate, not looking for and emphasizing the real but camouflaged connection. In other words, we are ignoring the very real threat of stealth jihad.
As Robert Spencer, the noted expert on Islamic theology who wrote Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs, remarked in a recent interview, “Obviously ‘the problem’ is rooted within Islamic texts and teachings that mandate warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. Ibn Warraq’s observation that there are moderate Muslims, but no moderate Islam is absolutely true….” Realizing that, the natural question arises as to what forms this effort of subversion for the purpose of caliphate building is permitted. Dr. Walid Phares, terrorism expert and professor at the National Defense University, points out that while the jihadists often employ violent tactics, many instead have utilized the Islamic concept of taqiya (a false front, or concealment of belief) to present a moderate image while still retaining Islamist ideological aims. In other words, realizing that jihad cannot be fought only on the battlefield, especially when militarily speaking the ummah (Islamic community) is overwhelmed, many Islamists rely on liberal Western multiculturalism and political institutions to advance the same agenda without spilling blood.
The disturbing truth is that there are a great many examples of stealth jihad, most of which never get adequate mainstream attention. For instance, the Council on American Islamic Relations, often regarded as the Islamic NAACP, is a proponent of a thoroughly anti-Western agenda, and it associates readily with organizations who regard us as evil incarnate. Speaking to a crowd of Californian Muslims in July 1998, CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad stated, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” Similarly, their Executive Director Nihad Awad participated in a conference for Hamas members and supporters in 1993. Fundraiser Rabih Haddad was convicted of helping transfer money to a Hamas front group, and other CAIR members members including Randall Royer and Ghassan Elashi. The head of their Michigan chapter Muthanna Al-Hanooti has been charged with spying on behalf of the Iraqi government. And that is just the beginning of a laundry list of disturbing details about CAIR that implicate them as a force for stealth jihad. In the United States, they are perhaps the most influential group, though it would be a great mistake to disregard the many other powerful forces for the non-violent destruction of Western civilization, including their indirect parent the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hizb ut-Tahrir.
It is therefore critical for the success in the misnamed War on Terror, which should instead be relabeled the War for Western Civilization, that we understand these there are links between the ideology and the violence, and often times said connections are the “moderate” front groups operating here and abroad. Such organizations, if not watched and held accountable for their cooperation with jihadists, threaten our very civilization. If their aims succeed, though the results may not be quite as bloody, the outcome is unthinkable. To live in a society where a woman has half the legal worth of a man, where homosexuals are executed by the state, and where the kuffirs (infidels) are forced to pay an extortive protection fee to continue living (the jizyah) is a prospect that should alarm any decent person. The best step then is to educate ourselves, and demand our political leaders to the same. To start, I strongly recommend that you attend Robert Spencer’s talk on Stealth Jihad on Tuesday, March 24 at Graham Chapel, beginning at 6:30 PM.
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