Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 425 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Thu 10 Jul 2008 16:52 Post subject:
sagascend wrote:
You're making a lot of assumptions, unfounded. For one, who knows what opposition to the Carribean label has or will be mounted? Unless you have evidence to the contrary it seems to me this is a movement at the early stages, and would not be on the radar yet. Secondly, simplicitly how? People in the Carribean are also multiracial and likely much more ethnically complex than homegrown US Americans.
Were YOU there during the whole fiasco during the 2000 census? Were YOU active on Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist? Honestly, I can't recall anyone named Maya who was with us tracking the events as it pertained to the racial categories of the 2000 census. We were the ONLY proposed category that faced opposition, and if you were there, you'd know that.
sagascend wrote:
The difference is that their organizing principle is culture. That principle resonates with the powers that be in the U.S. I'd bet money that Louisiana Creoles would get a category using a similar approach.
As I understand it, the NAACP effectively stopped that in it's tracks during the Civil Rights Era. Besides, what percentage of the US population would Louisiana Creoles make? 0.01? Since everyone here is in the business of stating how categories are formed without citing references from the census bureau, I'll join in on the obvious talking-out-of-one's-a$$ phenomenon, and state that their lack of significance in the US population will keep them from getting their category.
sagascend wrote:
You're in a situation similar to Black Americans, like it or not.
An obvious loophole around Rule 2.6, if you ask me. Look, as much as you're tempting me, I could go on forever about the difference between my situation and those of Black Americans, but that would entail me bringing back the classic "warbird" - something that no one, including myself, wants here.
sagascend wrote:
There is no unifying culture so the unifier is race, or rather, a racialized subgroup of Americans. In this case, mulatto. It will either take such a group longer to forge the culture, and thereby longer to make the case, or you will have to find another way to articulate your need for a category.
Ah yes, and that's something I've been working on for ten years, and seems to be the goal of many at mulatto.org and mulattopeople.org.
sagascend wrote:
Going back to something else you said earlier, about using the proportion of SSA ancestry as an indicator of need for/right to a category, are you saying that categorization should rightly proceed according to blood quantum? So that genetically European person with a small fraction of SSA ancestry gets in line ahead of someone who has more SSA genes? What about ancestry or appearance? I know I am asking you the question, but please still keep in mind while answering that political advocacy isn't allowed here. I'm really just interested to know your thoughts. If people want to continue a conversation about the response, please do so where political advocacy is allowed.
As much as I'd hate to correspond "prison" with "blackness," and "crime" with "SSA ancestry," it's the best metaphor I can think of. The metaphor is that (all other things being equal, ie. sentencing date, etc) the person who committed the lesser crime should get out of prison first.
Were YOU there during the whole fiasco during the 2000 census? Were YOU active on Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist? Honestly, I can't recall anyone named Maya who was with us tracking the events as it pertained to the racial categories of the 2000 census. We were the ONLY proposed category that faced opposition, and if you were there, you'd know that.
I suppose if you can spell, and read and recall events with reasonable accuracy, then these questions are pointless. Since you asked, I'll oblige: I was in graduate school studying the communication of identity and had a particular interest in ethnic identity salience. So I was actually pretty familiar with the multiracial movement and affiliated scholars due to my academic interests.
What I am not aware of is this: How many proposed categories were there and how many were added? All but the multiracial category? None?
Quote:
As I understand it, the NAACP effectively stopped that in it's tracks during the Civil Rights Era. Besides, what percentage of the US population would Louisiana Creoles make? 0.01? Since everyone here is in the business of stating how categories are formed without citing references from the census bureau, I'll join in on the obvious talking-out-of-one's-a$$ phenomenon, and state that their lack of significance in the US population will keep them from getting their category.
The degeneration of LC culture has been discussed elsewhere, and the Civil Rights Movement or era was not the cause. And far be it from me to stop you from communicating through whatever orifice gets the job done, but I'm surprised that you'd complain about speculation that you are already enthusiastically participating in. If you have no evidence about how the Carribean category is being perceived by the ethnopolitical blocs, then your speculations are no better or worse than anyone else's.
Quote:
An obvious loophole around Rule 2.6, if you ask me. Look, as much as you're tempting me, I could go on forever about the difference between my situation and those of Black Americans, but that would entail me bringing back the classic "warbird" - something that no one, including myself, wants here.
You're baiting yourself. I'm just shaking my head. The fact is that USAmerican mulattos lack a racialized, cohesive culture. Mulattos in the Carribean and Latin countries appear to coalesce around their ethnic/national identies. If you cannot stand to be compared to another USAmerican group that had THE SAME lack of cultural cohesiveness and created it within an oppressive and politically hostile environment, your issues with Black Americans or Black American culture (I'm sorry, I guess it is SSA ancestry according to your last post) run very deep indeed.
The Black American ethnicity was created. There was no cohesive sociopolitical power before that happened, as a race or anything else. Like it or not, that is the model. It's the model that other "minority" groups followed, to a certain degree. If the various label factions within the multiracial movement find a way to accomplish their goals I am not sure how or why you would deny these origins out of anything but spite.
With the inclusion of the Hispanic/Latino secondary ethnic category, a new model emerged. The advocates for the Carribean label are following it. I can find no one who was a part of the original movement except for Frank who is willing to have a real discussion about strategy, FUTURE strategy. People seem to focus on the past and salt the wounds they received at that time. All well and good, even understandable, but it doesn't seem productive.
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As much as I'd hate to correspond "prison" with "blackness," and "crime" with "SSA ancestry," it's the best metaphor I can think of. The metaphor is that (all other things being equal, ie. sentencing date, etc) the person who committed the lesser crime should get out of prison first.
Ah I see. So I guess I should also be having this conversation with sang-meles, octoroons and quadroon misdemeanors (misdemeanants? no idea what the noun is) instead of a felon. From what you are saying they are much more entitled to release. And, actually, the ultimate release is checking "White" isn't it? That's what some mahagony-colored Dominicans do. Wonder why they feel entitled to do so?
"Wow" is all I can say. It really is all about perspective, isn't it?
Were YOU there during the whole fiasco during the 2000 census? Were YOU active on Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist? Honestly, I can't recall anyone named Maya who was with us tracking the events as it pertained to the racial categories of the 2000 census. We were the ONLY proposed category that faced opposition, and if you were there, you'd know that.
No I wasn't because for me a census category wasn't as important as actually changing the minds of the people who made the census necessary. But I was always aware of it as well as many of the other organizations involved like Race Project, AMEA, MAVIN, etc and was involved with groups such as Swirl. Was it the only category that encountered opposition or the only one you noticed? In 2000 how many new categories were added? How many were requested?
1980:
White/Black or Negro/Japanese/Chinese/Filipino/Korean/Vietnamese/Indian (Amer) Print Tribe/Asian Indian/Hawaiian/Guamaian/Samoan/Eskimo/Aleut/Other Specify
and
Not Hispanic/Yes Mexican, Chicano, Mexican American/ Yes Cuban/Yes Puerto Rican/Yes other Spanish/Hispanic
1990:
All they changed was filling in the Other Hispanic. And allowing for more than one choice.
2000:
They added a fill in the blank other Asian and some other race.
So tell me again what other groups lobbied succesfully to be put on the census in 2000?
Quote:
As I understand it, the NAACP effectively stopped that in it's tracks during the Civil Rights Era. Besides, what percentage of the US population would Louisiana Creoles make? 0.01? Since everyone here is in the business of stating how categories are formed without citing references from the census bureau, I'll join in on the obvious talking-out-of-one's-a$$ phenomenon, and state that their lack of significance in the US population will keep them from getting their category.
If it were out of someone's ass then you wouldn't restate it. It just makes sense, wether you ike it or not. Same goes from Melungeons and many other smaller groups.
Quote:
Ah yes, and that's something I've been working on for ten years, and seems to be the goal of many at mulatto.org and mulattopeople.org.
And once that population is large enough in organized form to present their case then you might have a chance. Although the Multiracial organizations had a much better chance because of volume. And they still weren't successful.
Quote:
As much as I'd hate to correspond "prison" with "blackness," and "crime" with "SSA ancestry," it's the best metaphor I can think of. The metaphor is that (all other things being equal, ie. sentencing date, etc) the person who committed the lesser crime should get out of prison first.
Problem is most Caribbeans weren't in the alluded "prison system" in the first place. So they do not conform to those rules. Nor do first generation mixed people for that matter. But they do not have the same historical clout as a cohesice multigenerational group for the very reasn they are not a part of the "prison system" either.
By the way, military conscription might have been a better example.
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 425 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Thu 10 Jul 2008 18:53 Post subject:
Salsassin wrote:
So tell me again what other groups lobbied succesfully to be put on the census in 2000?
Cape Verdeans and Middle Easterners did, and that's off the top of my head - I really didn't want to answer these questions, as the websites for these are now defunct, leaving me no way to link you to them.
Salsassin wrote:
Richard Miller wrote:
As I understand it, the NAACP effectively stopped that in it's tracks during the Civil Rights Era. Besides, what percentage of the US population would Louisiana Creoles make? 0.01? Since everyone here is in the business of stating how categories are formed without citing references from the census bureau, I'll join in on the obvious talking-out-of-one's-a$$ phenomenon, and state that their lack of significance in the US population will keep them from getting their category.
Salsassin wrote:
If it were out of someone's ass then you wouldn't restate it. It just makes sense, wether you ike it or not. Same goes from Melungeons and many other smaller groups.
Oh no, I'm just playing your game - an it appears that you don't like it very much. That was the desired effect.
Salsassin wrote:
And once that population is large enough in organized form to present their case then you might have a chance. Although the Multiracial organizations had a much better chance because of volume. And they still weren't successful.
I was hoping that after my sarcasm of talking out of one's ass, that this would stop... but the talking out of the ass continues...
Salassin wrote:
Problem is most Caribbeans weren't in the alluded "prison system" in the first place. So they do not conform to those rules. Nor do first generation mixed people for that matter. But they do not have the same historical clout as a cohesice multigenerational group for the very reasn they are not a part of the "prison system" either.
By the way, military conscription might have been a better example.
That's because all was I talking about is SSA ancestry. And as long as there's no Carribbean box - which there isn't - then yes, they DO conform to those rules.
To Maya:
I misunderstood when you stated that my situation is similar to Black Americans - I thought that it was a suggestion that I should just check black.
However, I disagree with the clarification, still - because blacks were still counted on the census long before they had a cohesive culture.
And the way you interpret my prison analagy - you pretty much got it. However, I say that if someone wants to consider themselves white, and they have a preponderance of European ancestry, they should have no issues checking white - which means that there'd be no reason for you to talk to them.
As a mulatto, however, my scale isn't exactly tipped in either direction - meaning "checking white" is not the release, as I'm equally uncomfortable checking that.
I misunderstood when you stated that my situation is similar to Black Americans - I thought that it was a suggestion that I should just check black.
No worries.
Quote:
However, I disagree with the clarification, still - because blacks were still counted on the census long before they had a cohesive culture.
Sure, they were counted. But who was counted as what and how consistently were they counted as "the one thing?" There's not much you can point to, even the possession of overwhelming SSA or European ancestry, that did not change with politics or economics. Since the White category was perhaps the most changed in our history, there are whole groups of White folks who appeared and disappeared with every census. Same with the other categories. And weren't Census takers basically doing what you do in HR and eyeballing it using some sort of guideline? How many people self-reported a race?
Quote:
However, I say that if someone wants to consider themselves white, and they have a preponderance of European ancestry, they should have no issues checking white - which means that there'd be no reason for you to talk to them.
There we have to agree to disagree. Phenotype doesn't legislate identity, though what seems inevitable is that advocates for a particular identity will insist on strict adherance to it. In this case it is not that predominantly European Afro-Euro people can't or shouldn't just check "White" it's that perhaps some simply do not identify as White people. On the other hand, there are people with much less Euro ancestry or appearance who'd feel very comfortable checking and identifying "White." My point is that establishing a pecking order among mulattos and their racial identity rights based on blood quantum doesn't seem like it will create the cultural cohesiveness that you are looking for (unless you all agree that the contempt society shows for your SSA ancestry is justified and you will further apportion it according to admixture percentage).
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As a mulatto, however, my scale isn't exactly tipped in either direction - meaning "checking white" is not the release, as I'm equally uncomfortable check that.
Which makes sense given your political views. If a Bajan or Haitian who looked just like you wanted the same right to self-label and thought current labels were insufficient it seems to me that you actually have more in common than you might think.
Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 04:17 Post subject: Re: Caribbean/West Indian ID - U.S. Census 2010
Richard Miller wrote:
Salsassin wrote:
Interesting. Why would Hispanic Caribbeans be excluded?
They already get to not check black, what more do they want?
I can appreciate Carribbeans wanting their own category, but... let's just say that it would be an extreme understatement to say that I'd be totally pissed at the lack of fairness if another group of people with a preponderance of SSA ancestry are let off the hook, while those of who have an equal amount of SSA ancesty and something else - let alone those who have a preponderance of European or other non-SSA ancestry - are still left with ODR.
Not that I necessarily agree with a separate category for NONHispanic Caribbean people but why would getting a separate category "let them off the hook", as you descibe it? In fact given that the popular image of this group as black Jamaican or Black Haitian in fact the Indians, Syrians and others who check the box might risk being categorized as being part of a group seen as SSA in the minds of many.
If one were to ask my opinion I would suggest that a separate Caribbean category not be selected but that the "Black/African American" and the Asian categories have a subset to allow categorization as nonHispanic Caribbean. Along the same lines as set for Puerto Rican and others in the Hispanic box and the various Asian nationalities in the Asia/Pacific box.
I limit to these two categories given that most nonHispanic Caribban people claim an identity (in whole or in part) with one of these two, and those who claim neither are a very small group.
It is also very important to say NONHISPANIC Caribbean because Hispanic Caribbean is clearly a valid category. The problem is that while a reasonably accurate count and socio-economic data for the various Hispanic Caribbean populations is available the same doesnt apply to NonHispanic Caribbean populations, which lie submerged within the Black/African American and the Asian/Pacific categories.
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