"The stakes are a bit higher for us"

The NAACP's Washington bureau chief takes the Census Bureau to task for its new multiracial categories.

By Daryl Lindsey

Feb 16, 2000 | Tiger Woods could be the poster boy for the 2000 Census, as it attempts to count multiracial Americans for the first time. Although the champion putter won't find "Cablinasian," the term Woods famously told Oprah he preferred to African-American, he will this year be able to check all four racial categories he belongs to: African-American, Asian, white and Native American.

But while the new data may please Woods, as well as demographers and historians keen to trace multiracial population trends, civil rights groups are worried. Ever mindful of the basic principle of strength in numbers, organizations such as the NAACP and the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium are concerned that the myriad combinations resulting from the new categories could dilute estimates of racial populations, and cost some groups political clout. They say the new formulas could curtail the enforcement of equal-rights laws and the allocation of funding for race-targeted government programs such as health care, education and public transportation.

But their solution -- let Americans of mixed parentage identify all the races in their family tree, but then have the government assign them to a designated racial group for the purposes of civil rights enforcement -- will no doubt bother some advocates for the multiracial, who don't want the government, or the NAACP, deciding which race they legally belong to.

Only weeks before the release of its latest survey, the U.S. Census Bureau still hasn't decided how it will process the new data -- an example of bureaucratic disorganization that has only compounded the fears of all parties to the debate. The new form could result in as many as 63 racial combinations, or 126 if Hispanics -- an ethnic group, not a race -- are factored in.

In a recent interview, Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, talked about how the good intentions that led to the introduction of multiracial categories in Census 2000 could backfire.

What are the NAACP's arguments against the proposed "mark all boxes that apply" multiracial census?

We're not opposed to the "mark all boxes" -- we're probably the last group that would opposed something like that. We went through the process where the country referred to us as all sorts of things, and we wanted to identify for ourselves what we are. We decided that we're African-Americans. It's simply a way of allowing people to self-identify instead of simply being locked into an area.

How, then, have you been critical of the census revisions?

Our biggest criticism is how long it's taking for the federal government to decide how they're going to process this information. We've had a series of meetings with the various government agencies, including the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, the Census Bureau and others, to discuss how to guarantee that our traditional civil rights are protected as we allow people to self-identify.

And how do you think it's progressing now?

It still hasn't. There are still things that need to be worked out -- they have not announced how exactly they're going to process the information. After the information is gathered, it really has to be configured in a way that allows us to enforce our existing civil rights laws. And those laws aren't written based on 63 multiple-choice categories. A decision is going to have to be made to make sure that we can continue, even as we self-identify, to process the information.

What alternatives do you propose?

I would strongly recommend a tabulation process that would look at the various combinations and then place them in enforcement categories. For example, if you have someone who is half African-American and half white, and if you look at the historic discrimination problems that people have had in our society -- whether it's in employment, admissions into colleges and universities, securing government contracts or living in communities where they've had redlining or whatever -- the conclusion you would draw is that somebody who is half white and half black would be discriminated against if they applied for a bank loan, because of (being) half black. You want to make sure that, as we look at the historic need for enforcement against discrimination, you recognize that that person is part African-American.

What about someone who is Native American and African-American?

When you get into more of the historically discriminated-against ethnic minority groups, you would want to be able to look at where they are and how they are and use that as a premise for calculation. If someone were African-American and Native American and was recognized at an Indian reservation as being a member of that tribe, then the best thing for them to be recognized as is Native American. That provides the greatest civil rights protection for them, in so many different ways.

But won't the new mixed categorizations be more reflective of American diversity?

Yes, I think it's a good thing. We are a very diverse country, and that's our strength.

So what most concerns you?

The census figures are used for the reapportionment and redistricting process that determines our representation in Washington. The census figures are also used to figure out whether that representation is adequate -- that the representation is reflective of the diversity of people who live in that state and in that newly cut congressional district. You want to make sure that the districts are cut in a way that's consistent with the people who live there, whether they be working-class people, agricultural people or otherwise reflective of the interests of the folks who live there.

Probably the biggest danger is making sure that nobody gets left out. For the sake of argument, let's say a particular congressional district has been cut this way: 15 percent of the population is African-American, 4 percent of the population is Asian-American, 8 percent is Hispanic and so forth. You have a very large employer, maybe an automobile manufacturer. Arguments are being made that the automobile manufacturer is discriminating against people of color, and they say, "No, our workforce is reflective of the community that our plant is located in." Then as they begin to make their case for why they are representative, they say, "Well, let's look at the census figures" for this particular area that we live in. They may take a look and say, "No, 95 percent of the working population here is Caucasian." If it's inaccurate, then we've got a problem here, and let's see what we can do to work it out.

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