Posted on 01/07/2010 12:00:04 AM PST by FromLori
Question #9 Causes Uproar, Asks For Citizens To Pick 'Black,' 'African American' Or 'Negro' From Same Box
A fiery blast from the past is conjuring controversy in the new millennium. The word "negro" is now featured on an official U.S. document and now many are questioning if the Census Bureau is being insensitive.
It's a word that many African Americans associate with segregation, so imagine how shocked many were to see it on the 2010 U.S. census form.
"The fact that it's 2010 and they're still putting 'negro,' I am a little offended," said Secaucus resident Dawud Ingram.
Question #9 on the this year's census asks about your race. One of the boxes you can choose is "black," "African American," or "negro," all placed next to the same box. Ingram said it's not a word he uses to identify neither himself nor anybody else.
"African Americans haven't been going by the term 'negro' for decades now. It's really confusing," he said.
But census officials disagree, saying they found some older African Americans identify themselves that way and they're trying to be inclusive. In a statement, they said: "Results from the census in 2000 showed that a number of respondents provided a write-in response of 'negro' when answering the question on race."
In fact, Congress approved the form more than a year ago. Newark resident Jabbar Ali can't believe it.
"I thought it was something we left behind a long time ago – the word 'negro,'" said Ali.
Chanou Wilshire said the census form doesn't give her an option since it's got "African American," "black," and "negro" next to the same box.
"It's highly offensive," she told CBS 2.
But not everyone is offended.
"How you define yourself I guess is subjective. But for me, that on a form doesn't offend me at all," said Brooklyn resident Tiffany Campbell.
Others don't understand why the question of race has to come up on any form.
"I'm an American. What's wrong with just being an American?" asked Newark resident Derri Gowns.
Census bureau officials said they're preparing for the 2020 form, asking folks now in a questionnaire whether the word 'negro' should be removed.
What do you think about the word? Should it be removed? Vote in our poll on the right and leave your comments below!
I remember a time when blacks were called ‘’colored’.
Let me know when they get around to German-Swedish-French-Irish Lutherans.
Will the Census come out in the winter or summer? I’m a tan-American in summer and a whitish-pink-American in the winter.
Man... I was hoping “whitey” would also be an option.
RACE
__ Caucasian, White, Whitey, Honky, Redneck, Passing
African-American is a culture and/or ethnic group
Black is a political persuasion that came out of the self-awareness cultures of the 1960’s
That must be because folks have been lying to them. "Negro" was the term you used to indicate you favored integration. In the 1950s and 1960s, all the civil rights organizations used it exclusively in preference to the older term, "colored," or what was considered truly offensive, "black"—which was favored by white segregationists, along with nastier words.
Then, with the advent of Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, and that whole generation of more tough-talking race-baiters—who referred to M.L. King and the church set as "Uncle Toms"—the term began to lose its PC credentials in favor of "black."
To show how fully the source is ignorant of history, those angry young men who rejected the term "negro" favored not integration, but self-segregation by blacks. Terms such as "black," and ultimately, the rap-song favorite, "niggah," were designed to accentuate the differences between the races, rather than soft-pedaling them—as "negro" does, by referring to the color black in a foreign language.
It’s a gross oversimplification; the Australian Aborigines aren’t included in those three categories, for example.
I’m offended that they call themselves African-American, rather than American.
I'm really sick of the race crap. We're all different skin colors in my own family, many languages but all American.
It's just tiresome after a while.
Or maybe write in “blanco”.
I always put down Native American. I was born in Morristown, NJ. Doesn’t that make me a Native American?
Correct answer.
I think I'll write in "American".
If you are going to go to that level, cross them all out and put “Vulcan”.
Or if that is too flippant, tick all of them.
Outrage, my rear-end. Just WHAT do they want to be called now?
>> I thought the entire human race came out of Africa? I think I’ll check the ‘negro’ box.
LOL! That’s my plan, but I hadn’t thought to use that as justification. If pressed, I intend to say that in post racial America each of us is free to choose our race, and who has the right to tell me what it is?
Putting those together is wrong. My doctor is African-American (she's from South Africa) but she's not negro.
This helps inflate the numbers.
Life must be pretty good for someone to get pissed over that.
Nice to meet you! I’m pasty white! LOL.
I tell my children—skin color is like Christmas wrapping paper. After you open the presents, what’s more important? What’s on the outside? Or what’s on the INSIDE???
As my daughter says, “D’OH!”
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