{"id":5416,"date":"2016-10-03T06:37:25","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T12:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=5416"},"modified":"2016-10-03T07:57:13","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T13:57:13","slug":"is-kim-kardashian-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/10\/is-kim-kardashian-white.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Kim Kardashian white?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AKim_Kardashian_2%2C_2012.jpg;<\/p>\n

Maybe not.<\/p>\n

That is, according to a USA Today<\/a> article, the Census Bureau is proposing adding a new racial category to the census, to cover Middle Eastern & North African-origin people, who up to now had been defined as \u201cwhite.\u201d \u00a0According to the article,<\/p>\n

Under the proposal, the new Middle East and North African designation \u2014 or MENA, as it\u2019s called by population scholars \u2014 is broader in concept than Arab (an ethnicity) or Muslim (a religion). It would include anyone from a region of the world stretching from Morocco to Iran, and including Syrian and Coptic Christians, Israeli Jews and other religious minorities.<\/p>\n

But the Census Bureau, which has been quietly studying the issue for two years, also has gotten caught up in debates about some groups \u2014 such as Turkish, Sudanese and Somali Americans \u2014 who aren\u2019t included in that category. Those are issues the White House is trying to resolve before adding the box on 2020 census forms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, of course, if you think about it, it\u2019s rather odd that Turks wouldn\u2019t be included if Syrians or Iranians, say, are (the Turks are hardly European!), and the Turks and Armenians are neighbors, after all \u2014 Armenia may be its own country now, but the Armenians killed in the Genocide, and those who fled in its aftermath, were an ethnic minority in Turkey. \u00a0Hence, it doesn\u2019t seem a stretch to say that Kim Kardashian, of Armenian ancestry, could be declared non-white.<\/p>\n

(And what about the Kurds? \u00a0And Jews now living in Israel who had immigrated from Europe \u2014 but whose ancestors, millennia \u00a0ago, left the Middle East? \u00a0Or Jews now living in Europe, but, of course, with ancestors from the Middle East?)<\/p>\n

And why are they making this change? \u00a0For a variety of political reasons \u2014 in order to count Middle Easterners and Arabs, to determine whether a congressional district needs to be gerrymandered on their behalf, for example, or to determine if they\u2019re being discriminated against, or measure their health outcomes or income relative to other groups. \u00a0And for a feel-good reason, because many such individuals don\u2019t like being labelled as \u201cwhite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The impact? \u00a0If nothing else, all those predictions about whites becoming a minority \u2014 that is, less than 50% of the population \u2014 come true a lot sooner. \u00a0But this reclassification is likewise an indicator of the ultimate meaninglessness of these categories, and the fact that they are all about politics, not anything that has any real \u201ctruth\u201d behind it.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s peculiar about this article in particular is that this is actually old news \u2014 or, at least, Pew reported<\/a> that the Census Bureau started the process of making this change over a year ago. \u00a0And what\u2019s also interesting is that they are, according to this older article, no longer using the word \u201crace\u201d at all, just asking, \u201cWhich categories describe [the respondent]?\u201d \u00a0Those categories are:<\/p>\n