The Lie of Race

Much has been made of the Sudeep Reddy article in the Mach 25, 2011 Wall Street Journal article entitled “Latinos Fuel Growth in Decade.” While factually true, it is also fundamentally misleading. There is an inherent falsehood that supersedes any honest discussion of race in America: How we define “race.”

A simple illustration is our President. Barak Obama is not our first Black President. He is our first half-Black President. It is well understood that his mother was White. The lie, simply put, is that anyone with any ancestor who was Black is considered by the Census Bureau to be 100% Black. It is this same logic that suggests that any children born to an interracial couple where one of the ancestors is Black is, well, Black. Tiger Woods is lauded as being a great Black athlete. It is undeniable that his is a great athlete. It is arguable that is 25% Black racial background really makes him Black. Is it any wonder that the “Black” population in the U.S. appears to be growing? True, people with Black ancestry may be increasing but it is wrong to suggest that this is a major shift in the population.

The lie is even more pervasive when it comes to Hispanics. All demographers acknowledge that Hispanic is not a Race. It is a Cultural Identification. All Hispanics are a mixture of one degree of another between other races. Hence, there are Asian Hispanics (4.7%) and Black Hispanics (12.2% both based on figures in the article). But to hear the media expounding on what it means, there is an assumption that Hispanic means Mexican. There is also the notion that they are a monolithic population with a particular political point of view rather than a more realistic assessment that there is variety of thought and self-identification in the population.

In terms of how the U.S. Census Bureau recognizes “Hispanic” as anyone who claims to be Hispanic. The self-proclamation is enough. Hence, knowledge of Spanish is not required. Neither is any kind of racial or country of origin. For those of us who have lived and worked in Mexico or any other “Hispanic” country, we know first hand the divisions within those societies are based upon how much “Indian” blood one has. Those who claim no Indian blood tend to be regarded as belonging to an upper class. Indians in much of the Americas represent the lowest class. But to come to America means that you are now, for the first time, part of a larger group that some believe has a political agenda, cultural imperative, and ethnic identity. There they are divided; here there are suddenly united.

So, what do the families who have lived in Los Angeles since the 1890s have in common with the newly arrived illegal aliens of 2011 in Tucson? Not very much! And to suggest they do is to promote a lie that only furthers the political aims of a race-based “club.”