Census has no business asking about race. Answer American

By Mark Krikorian

A great American once said, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

The Census forms that have been arriving in mailboxes this week remind us that nearly 50 years after Dr. Martin Luther King's speech, we still have an obnoxious system of mandatory government racial classification. While the motives behind today's race laws are different, and better, than those of the past, the government nevertheless continues to sort us into official racial and ethnic categories.

But those same Census forms offer ordinary citizens a way to register their aspiration for a colorblind society. Two of the 10 questions are about race and ethnicity, and a quarter of the space on the form is taken up by a long list of possible choices. Being of Armenian descent, today's race laws classify me as white, though that in itself is a relatively recent development. But rather than play along by answering Question 9 about race, I checked a box marked, "Some other race," and wrote in "American."

My inspiration was Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote in a 1995 Supreme Court decision, "In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American." This is not to devalue one's ethnic or racial identity, if any; groups such as Alpha Phi Alpha, the Colombian American Bar Association or the Ancient Order of Hibernians are important elements of our vibrant civic culture. But just as our religious affiliations are none of the government's business (and the Census is rightly barred from asking about them), we also need a wall of separation between race and state.

There's no doubt that the race data are useful. My own think tank (whose views are not necessarily reflected here) makes extensive use of them in research on the impacts of immigration. But just because something is useful doesn't make it right.

Fill out your Census form — it's your civic duty. Don't lie in answering — that's wrong. But write in "American" to send a message that the government should get out of the race business.

Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit think tank that supports tighter controls on immigration.

Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, March 19, 2010 in USA TODAY editorial

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