What's My Race?

The Census is coming up soon, and there is a bit of controversy arising from the right about the questions regarding Race. The argument goes like this: The United States Constitution requires that an "enumeration" be made every ten years. To enumerate means to "determine the number of" or to "count". The Constitution gives no other requirements for the Census other than that the "enumeration shall be made... within every subsequent Term of ten years". Therefore, some are saying that all questions on the Census that are not part of an actual "enumeration" or count are Unconstitutional and that citizens are not bound to answer them.

I think I have to differ with my friends on the right for just a couple of things I feel need to be pointed out.

1. The US Census has asked about race since the first Census in 1790. At the time, it was necessary to determine how many "three fifths" "other persons" (slaves for anyone who isn't getting my drift) were to be counted and credited as population to the several states for the purpose of determining Congressional representation. EVERY CENSUS since 1790 has asked the same question about race.

2. Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution has another little dependent clause that my friends on the right fail to include in their argument: "in such Manner as they (Congress) shall by law direct." Seems to pretty much put a hole in the argument to me. Congress can collect any information they want, so long as there is a current law that allows it. Only Supreme Court action to further define what this means would change that.

So friends, if you are dead set on changing the way the Census is done, refuse to fill in the information, get fined, and sue the United States over the Constitutionality of the Census Law of 2010.

What makes it odd these days is the variety of different races you can be. There are 15 specified "races" on this year's census form. There are three different types of "Hispanic" an there is also sections for "Other Hispanic", "Other Asian", and "Other Pacific Islander". So 18 total choices. But, if none of those fit, there is always the catch all "some other race". I guess that for all the Vampires, Werewolves, Halflings, Elves, Dwarves and Trolls out there.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary, amongst it's multitude of wonderful definitions, defines race as "a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits". I wonder if that's what they mean when they say that all white people look alike!?

OK, so by this definition you have "White" which is a generic way to say "of European lineage. Then you have "Black" which is equally saying "of African lineage". Then there is "Hispanic": "of Spanish heritage". Native American, Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, East Asian and West Asian. But wait, what about Arabs, Jews, Slavs, and Persians? The people of Romania claim that they were descended from the original Latins! Where will this all end?

In Eastern Europe before the first World War and after the fall of the Soviet Union there was a nasty little problem called "Balkanization". This is defined again by our friends at Merriam-Webster as "to break up into smaller and often hostile units".

I am concerned that the Federal Government's preoccupation with race, is an effort to do just this: To divide the American people into smaller and smaller "ethnic" groups and then set up a process by which these groups will compete with one another for the spoils of Government. We see this already with the Rich/Poor, Black/White, White/Hispanic arguments that are happening today. With a "balkanized" American people, they will be so busy fighting each other that there will be no one able to stand up to our enemies, Foreign and Domestic!

Teddy Roosevelt once said:

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all… The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic… There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."

Today those hyphenations are different, African-American, Mexican-American, Asian-American, etc.

Benjamin Franklin, in his wit, on July 4, 1776 waiting his turn to sign the Declaration of Independence that brought our country into life said "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately".

On June 16, 1858 three years before the United States was split asunder in the great Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said "A house divided against itself cannot stand".

Matthew Chapter 12, Verse 25: "And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand".

If we cannot all unite as AMERICANS, then the days of greatness of the United States of America are indeed past.