Googled phrase "Validity of Racial Classifications"

... came up with some stuff (I'd have listed this as a "current obsession", but it was going to get long).

I figure, nothing is new under the sun, right? Somewhere, someone else has been thinking about this.

- A report from North Carolina Public Health entitled "Self-Reported versus Published Data on Racial Classification in North Carolina Birth Records", dated February 2004, by Paul Buescher, Ziya Gizlice and Kathleen Jones-Vessey.

ABSTRACT
Objectives: To compare race as reported by the mother on North Carolina birth certificates with the data on race in the officially reported statistics.

Methods: Text entries of race by the mother, collected through the electronic birth registration system, are described as well as the coding rules whereby these entries are converted to standard racial categories for the reporting of birth statistics.

Results: Out of nearly 118,000 live births in North Carolina, mothers reported more than 600 different versions of race on the birth certificates. These entries are collapsed into ten standard racial categories according to federal coding rules. Approximately two-thirds of mothers of Hispanic ethnicity report their race with a label that can be categorized as “Other” race, but nearly all of these births are re-coded to “White” for the official birth statistics. (**See note at the bottom of this post)

Conclusions: This study shows that, given the opportunity to report their own race, North Carolinians describe their race with a wide variety of terms and concepts. In contrast, health statistics are usually reported using a few standardized racial categories defined by federal policy.

Interesting quote right in the introduction of the 7-page paper:

Published health data give the impression that racial categories are distinct and well-defined. However, there is a growing consensus in the scientific community that distinct human races do not exist.1 But because of the historical social stratification role of race, particularly in the United States, categorization of people by race continues."
1. Kaplan JB, Bennett T. Use of race and ethnicity in biomedical publication. JAMA 2003; 289:2709-2716.

Some other quotes:

Ultimately, “people are who they say they are. This requires a recognition that such definitions change over time, and that they may not correspond to any of the set of choices that researchers have fixed in advance.”

And

“Race” in the mind of an individual may be quite different from fixed statistical categories determined by governmental agencies. Some people do not understand the concept of race, and others do not want to be categorized by race. A broadly defined racial group is at best a crude marker for particular health problems, and certainly not a risk factor or cause. Racial discrimination, however, may account for part of the observed differences between racial groups in some health indicators.

You can read the paper here. It was actually an easy read.

- A similar study and report was done in California.

- A short article entitled Racial Profiling In American Healthcare, by Mandy Willingham, published in 2003, discusses whether racial classifications are valid. On the one hand, while "...the June 2000 Humane Genome Project report seemingly denounced the medical validity of race with the indisputable conclusion that 99.9% of all homo sapiens share the same genetic material..." certain ethnicities are certainly more prone to certain disease than others, or react to medications differently.

- An article entitled "DNA Validity and Capability in Ethnic Identification" published April/May 2001.

**Little Historical footnote. The government has taken it upon itself to change "racial" designations at another point in history (passage taken from the Monacan Nation website):

"Virginia passed its Racial Integrity Law in 1924, which prohibited intermarriage between those considered white and those having any mixture of colored blood more than one-sixteenth. This law was to have a disastrous effect on the Monacan people and resulted in many of their records being changed by state officials without their knowledge. Many Monacans left the state during this time, because they were no longer permitted to marry freely or to register as Indian in any official capacity. Indian children were at this time attending a first-to-seventh-grade school at Bear Mountain, and some were known to walk five miles each way to reach the school.

During this period, Monacans began challenging the official classifications of their race by state officials and census takers. The debate continued through 1942, when several Monacans led a legal challenge to the state's actions, and Dr. Walter Plecker, who headed the state Bureau of Vital Statistics, was forced to admit that he had no scientific evidence ascertaining the Monacans' race. In 1943, Monacans challenged the local draft board successfully resolving their incorrect racial classification for the World War II draft."

Comments

Julie said…
Well, as I told you today - you are certainly making me think about this stuff. A lot of what you say I agree with - some of it I don't - but most of it makes me look at all of this from a slightly different perspective than I have been - and I appreciate that. And you also give me license to focus on this topic for a hot minute. Too often I have so many thing to think about that I don't stop and focus in on anyone for more than a fraction of a second.

But, ultimately, it's going to take me a minute to get together a real response to all of this and by then it will likely be so long that I'll have to post it. I'll send you the link when I finally get it all together.
professor said…
hey, you have to look up about the social security numbers...I once knew what the numbers stood for but since forgot...but each set of numbers represents something and each number represents your race, where you were born and the year etc...
The Bear Maiden said…
My first pass at it says that "The SSN has seven digits: XXX (is the Area number)- XX (is the Group number) - XXXX (is the Serial number). The Area numbers are assigned to each State, District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, the Railroad Retirement Board, and "Outside the United States". The Group number series were assigned (in blocks) to each of the States, and the Serial number represents a numerical series from 0001 to 9999. Your SSN is linked to your State of residence when you obtained your number. "Meaning of the Social Security Number" as found in the Social Security Bulletin v. 45, no. 11, November 1982, pages 29-30 (HE 3.3:45/11) provides interesting facts but the text needs updating. This is one of the better number systems designed by Uncle Sam. This 9-digit system has a capacity of nearly one billion numbers, as of November 1982; about 277 million numbers have been issued, leaving bout 75 percent still available." From the Northern Kentucky University site. I believe this to be true because I had to deal with something re my student loans or something, and when I gave my social the guy said "Oh, you're from NY, eh?" I know some people thought it could track your race... but I dunno. I'd have to find the gov't info.

-Your friendly neighborhood myth debunker
Natalie said…
WRT SSN assignment, I think you're right, TBM. Most CA and NC SSNs (the numbers I see most often) have those first three digits in common (well, there are a series for each state, but you know what I mean).

But about classification: my kids' paternal grandma is Japanese, their paternal grandfather is English and Dutch (descended from, anyway - not culturally), and on my side, there's a whole mix of European stuff plus, allegedly, an itsy, bitsy bit of Cherokee. Because I think it's required that if you're born in NC, you have 1/16th Cherokee. But who knows? My mom was raised in an orphanage and only had limited information from her mother (who visited occasionally - WTF?). Still, she's told me that since as far back as I can remember, so I guess it's possibly true.

So my kids - they're 1/4 Japanese, and the rest is a mix of Irish and/or Scottish (BTW, we have to thank some ancestor for Moon's gorgeous red hair), English, Dutch, other assorted European ancestry and maybe a couple drops of Cherokee. There's a predominance, of course (I guess that would be 'White, not of Hispanic descent'), and that's what I'd probably choose, if I had to, but it bugs me. Moon got her cheekbones from MIL and all the Japanese ancestors before her, and they don't fit so nicely in the little caucasian box.

We are going to see "Are You Ready, My Sister?" tomorrow, and I had the kids watch a show on unitedstreaming.com on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. It was interesting watching their reaction; for THEM, they couldn't seem to understand why the color of someone's skin would...matter? Moon said, "C'mon mom, why are they REALLY beating her?" It that both made me feel good, and scared the hell out of me. I mean, I'm glad they wouldn't see why skin color matters at all, but at some point, I guess I need to fracture their world and let them in some of the secrets from the dark side of humanity.

(My) Sun understood it more, but perhaps because he's studying WWII and therefore, the Holocaust, but that wasn't about skin color, and it's easy for him right now to blame it on the Nazis and single them out as 'bad guys'.

I need to quit commenting so late in the evening; I'm more rambly and less coherent. ;)
The Bear Maiden said…
Naw, Natalie, you made good observations which sparked another thought in me.

When my Sun was confronted with the brutality of slavery (he was reading a graphic novel about Frederick Douglass) he said "Stop mom, I don't want to talk about it. It makes me cry." I haven't really gotten around to addressing it again...
professor said…
thought Id visit again to tell you that your post is thought provoking, been thinking about it and you know how I HATE to think in my spare time...you and poppy really need to write that book...

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