INTERRACIAL VOICE - Guest Editorial

Guest Editorial

What We're Up Against
By Nathan Douglas

As most regular readers of Interracial Voice know, I was fortunate enough to be among those invited to testify last year on behalf of a multiracial identifier before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology (5/22/97). This subcommittee, part of the larger Committee on Government Reform and Oversight for the House of Representatives, held a series of three hearings: April 23, May 22, and July 25, 1997.

Recently, the subcommittee mailed out its comprehensive, printed-and-bound record of all three hearings. The document runs 702 pages and provides a valuable historical record, if you are concerned about the issues of multiracial identity, racial politics, and the future of race relations in America. Those desiring their own copy should contact the U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402, and ask for the report of the "Federal Measures of Race and Ethnicity and the Implications for the 2000 Census" hearings, Serial No. 105-57, ISBN 0-16-055962-6.

Now some of you may remember that I wrote two hearing summaries for Interracial Voice. "I Solemnly Swear..." covered the 5/22/97 hearing and "Leaving the Scene of a Crime" documented the infamous Petri betrayal at the 7/25/97 final hearing which was witnessed by many multiracial activists, including Charles Byrd, Susan Graham, William Javier Nelson, James Landrith, Valerie Wilkins-Godbee, and me. At both hearings, our opponents voiced concerns you are already familiar with -- like preserving the integrity of current racial data for the purposes of facilitating civil rights enforcement and insuring an uninterrupted flow of minority "entitlements." Those are, of course, legitimate issues.

Some of us acknowledged these political exigencies when we offered a compromise solution to the dilemma posed by a distinct multiracial category. This alternative became known as the "multiracial category with sub-identifiers" and, though shunned by some notables within our own movement, it was endorsed eventually by Congressman John Conyers, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. In his prepared statement delivered at the 7/25/97 hearing, Conyers had the following to say:

I would like to propose what I believe is a very simple solution for the OMB -- we should include a "multiracial" category on the next census AND within the same question allow people to check all of the racial categories with which they identify. (p. 535, Hearing Report)

Putting aside this more obvious political dialog and its accompanying dynamic, I would like to focus instead on something I find far more revealing -- something Charles Byrd has dubbed "the call to return to the collective." In the aforementioned 5/22/97 hearing summary, I referred to comments made by Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton as "a disjointed diatribe which stunned us all." Because Ms. Norton's 5/22 opening statement was more-or-less extemporaneous (as was her 7/25 statement), there was no written record of it available at the time of the hearings. But with the publication of the hearing report, all of her comments are now part of the public record.

Therefore, I offer the readers of Interracial Voice two excerpts from Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton's statements without any commentary other than this: read Ms. Holmes' words carefully because this is really what we're up against...

(The following Eleanor Holmes-Norton excerpt is from the 5/22/97 Hearing Report, p. 260)

Race relations are as much a problem in the United States of America as racism is. And when we go to sub-categories and we have got Asian, and black, and Hispanic, and Irish, it will go on ad infinitum. The reason that it will go on ad infinitum is because this glorious country has freely taken in people of every race and ethnicity.
So I sit here as a light skin black woman and I sit here to tell you that I am black. That people who are my color in this country will always be treated as black. And calling yourself a multiethnic will get people walking down the street to say you [are] a multiethnic, so I do not regard you like those blacks that I see on television that steal from people or who murder people, you are multiethnic.
We have got to join together, people of color. We who are Asian and who are Hispanic. We who are black have got to say look, we are people of color, and we are readily identified. Any discrimination against one of us is discrimination against another. If you want to know my heritage, I am going to tell you what it is, because I am proud of my mama, and I am proud of my daddy, but I will identify with people of color.
If you do not do that, you are right now creating a different America. There are going to be whole groups of people who are going to drop out of the black race. That is how pitiful it is going to be, if we go to these various categories. People who do not have any immediate heritage of black and Hispanic, they are going to drop out.

(The following Eleanor Holmes-Norton excerpt is from the 7/25/97 Hearing Report, pp. 514-515)

I have come this morning particularly, to hear about the new proposal to allow people to check multiple boxes. All I can say is watch out. I can't imagine what kind of confusion may come from multiple boxes.
I know this much: Those who come forward wishing a category to recognize their mixed parentage are very sincere, and I very much sympathize with what they are doing. They come forward seeking a real solution to their dilemma. My problem is, I do not believe that solution is found in an official document of the United States.
As to several categories, indeed, even as to the multi category, I do hope we do not now bring down upon us fun and games in the census, as people try to identify themselves in multiple ways and in ludicrous ways. We have to not only ask ourselves what are we after, but how will Americans receive this question.
I cannot imagine how Generation X, for example, would have received the multiethnic question or the multiracial question, not to mention the ability to check off as many boxes as you feel like checking off. This is serious business. There is much at stake here.
...Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me say this: We are not, when we talk about a multiracial category, in this country, only talking about a category. We are talking about, not a new category, but a new race. And if you do not believe that this is the case, I invite you to look at the history of the West Indies, of Brazil, and of South America where, indeed, there has long been a multiracial category.
That is not a category. What attaches to that category has been a whole set of distinctions, privileges, benefits, and lack of the same. The last thing we need in this country, given the role race has played, is a new category that develops into a new race.