Race is an issue that keeps coming up, no matter how much we want to put it behind us. The American reaction to race is completely odd and highly divisive. We are afraid to talk about race, as if it were some sort of taboo that cannot be addressed. Despite not wanting to deal with it, race relations have had a shameful history in the U.S. that continues to this day.
Hypodescent laws, or laws that automatically assign a child’s race as that of the minority parent, were in place in some states until Loving v. Virginia was decided in 1967. These laws emerged out of the slave era, where many children came from a white, landowning parent and a slave parent. The Jim Crow Era saw the categorization of "mulattoes" and "quadroons" and afforded these groups different rights. These classifications even extended to "one drop" of black blood. This ridiculous rule was unique to the United States. "Passing as white" became an issue as paranoid Southerners wanted to keep blacks out, no matter how "diluted" the lineage was. The movie Imitation of Life portrays the phenomenon of passing as white perfectly, as the "white" daughter of a black woman was so ashamed of her mother being black that she completely shunned her.
Perhaps even more bizarre are the racial categories in demographic data collection in the modern era. The 2000 census had boxes for a variety of backgrounds – all except Middle Eastern and North African, because they are considered white. There are no boxes for "Hispanic or Latino," since the U.S. government classifies Hispanic and race as two different categories. Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian have their own category, despite being less than 1 percent of the population. "White alone or in combination" is a category that leads one to inquire what exactly the Census Bureau is trying to accomplish. Perhaps the Census Bureau is trying to inflate numbers, or maybe the Census Bureau is a joke in general, considering the categories – or lack of – used.
The American Anthropological Association’s position on race is that it is ultimately a social construction with no significance other than what people assign it. According to the AAA, it has been used to oppress people and elevate certain groups. Sociologists use more accurate terms regarding these groups. "Minority" and "majority" refer to the amount of power a group has. In the case of apartheid-era South Africa, whites were in the sociological majority and the demographical minority.†
Race is even becoming an issue in the presidential contest as people speak of the Bradley Effect coming into play. People say there will be a "post-racial America" if Obama is elected, but that just is not the case. The National Alliance and the Ku Klux Klan’s continuing existence attests to the fact that there are still many people who hate someone just because they are a different race. We probably will never put race behind us, because it gives people a reason to think they are better than someone else.
Corgey, a political science senior, can be reached via [email protected]
