Ethnicity and Race: What are You?

"What are You?

Shortly after birth, most Americans have the ethnic/racial group identity of their biological parents placed on their birth certificates. This provides an identity for children that will usually stay with them throughout their lives and will have a major impact on how they see themselves and how others treat them. It often restricts their choices of friends and marriage partners. It may give them advantages or it may create road blocks in their educations, careers, and the neighborhoods in which they wish to live.
Many, if not most, European Americans now believe that this official ethnic/racial classification and life-long tracking is unnecessary. The writer Tony Morrison has observed that 'whites see themselves as unraced.' For those who do not label themselves in terms of 'race', official racial designations naturally seem irrelevant and even counter productive to social harmony and individual rights. In contrast, members of ethnic/racial minorities generally see value in this group classification system because they do not consider themselves to be 'unraced.' For them, labeling may prevent their official invisibility and subsequent social and economic discrimination. This view is not surprising considering the history of past discrimination and even slavery of some groups.

The official state and national government practice over the last century in the U.S. was to try to force everyone into one of a number of specific racial/ethnic categories for the national census, hiring goals, college admission records, etc. Ultimately, these categories are based on the false assumption that somewhere there are 'pure races' and 'pure cultures.' Such groups do not exist today and may never have existed due to intergroup mating and to the more or less constant diffusion of culture trai"