June 14, 2005


This Annoys Me

This morning I was logged into the hospital computer system, pulling new patient information, when I noticed that on nearly every patient, race was listed as "non-Hispanic."

That covers a heckuva lot of territory, methinks.

When I filled out my last census form, I think my only ethnicity choices were Hispanic or non-Hispanic. What's up with that?

I checked the census bureau website, and here's the list of links on race and ethnicity:

Race and Ethnicity:
Hispanic or Latino by Type
Race Alone or in Combination
Race, Cominbations of Two Races
Percent of Persons Who are American Indian and Alaska Native Alone, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are Asian Alone, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are Black or African American Alone, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Alone, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are Some Other Race Alone, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are Two or More Races, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are White Alone, map by state
Percent of Persons Who are White Alone, not Hispanic or Latino, map by state

Race and Hispanic or Latino:
Race and Hispanic or Latino for all states
Percent of Persons Who are Hispanic or Latino, map by state

Notice how they lump "white" all together into one group? What, I wonder, does a white (actually, I prefer "beige") person whose ancestors came over from northern Scotland 350 years ago have in common with a beige person whose parents came over from southern Italy 50 years ago?

Ethnically, not much. But we have one HUGE thing in common. Do you know what it is? If you said "we're all Americans" go to the head of the class.

Why are we dividing people up like this? Is there any reason for this besides divvying up the goodies among competing "minorities?" Somehow I don't think so.

And next time I fill out a form that asks me my race, I will put "human."

Posted by CrankyBeach on June 14, 2005 2:55 PM

TR warned against 'hypenated Americanism' a century ago. He was right then, and he's right now. I recall a few years ago when some people tried to introduce the term 'Euro-American' for those of us whose ancestors came from, well, Europe. It didn't catch on.

Me, I'm an AMERICAN with a capital "A".

Posted by: docjim505 at June 14, 2005 5:05 PM

Yeah, I remember a few years back when a caller to a local radio show, responding to a "Latina" previous caller, called herself an "Irisha." Illustrating absurdity with absurdity....

Posted by: CrankyBeach at June 14, 2005 5:12 PM

CB, I've ranted about the same thing. On the last census A put myself down as Celtic Anglo Saxon or some such :)

A few years a go a coworker and I were discussing how we had as little in common with say, someone from Slovakia as we did with someoone from Greece or Egypt. A black coworker looked at us and said he'd never thought of it that way, he'd always just thought of us as white.

Posted by: Ith at June 15, 2005 11:50 AM

Back in law school, during a classroom discussion, someone lumped all the non-minorities as "Anglos." I requested that I'd prefer not being called an "Anglo" in light of the historical experience of my ancestors - the Irish - with the Anglo-Saxons.

Needless to say, I received a lot of puzzled looks from people with no historical knowledge and wondered why they weren't supposed to lump the red-headed Irish-American guy in with "all the other Anglos."

Posted by: Peter Sean Bradley at June 15, 2005 3:54 PM

I hear ya, Peter! My own background is heavy on the Scottish and Irish. Don't lump me in with those filthy Sassenachs! And were they going to call the Serbo-Croatians "Anglos" too? Sheesh.

Posted by: CrankyBeach at June 15, 2005 4:38 PM