From sword to plowshare: using race for discrimination and antidiscrimination in the United States

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how the United States' policies of antidiscrimination drew on official racial categories that were traditionally used explicitly for discriminatory purposes. After briefly recounting the history of official racial classification practices in the United States and their relation to racist laws and practices, we describe the development of legal prohibitions on racial discrimination, culminating in the civil rights movement of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. This leads to an examination of how statistical data on race are used to implement civil rights law, before outlining contemporary official racial categories. Finally, we assess the debates that have arisen concerning the collection of racial statistics for the purposes of antidiscrimination enforcement. In conclusion, we argue that, more than any autonomous political challenge to the principle of government race classification, what has emerged powerfully in recent years is an awareness of tensions between the needs of the civil rights enforcement machinery and the emerging claim of Americans' “right” to self‐define racially as they see fit – in short, between the politics of distribution and the politics of recognition.

Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round

“…The debate about the desirability of formal ethnic classifi cation is a political one -and it is important and timely. In the United States, some public fi gures have called for the removal of racial categories from offi cial state-level records, believing that government policies should not be informed by data on race (Morning and Sabbagh 2005 ). In some European countries, France in particular, the potential introduction of offi cial ethnic classifi cation has been hotly debated (Blum 2002 ;Simon and Stavo-Debauge 2004 ).…”

Racial formation, inequality and the political economy of web traffic

“…In the same way that addressing such questions are a necessary condition for legal action under the disparate impact theory of discrimination (Morning & Sabbagh, 2005), demonstrating disparate outcomes based on race within the online environment, and establishing the tangible implications/harms they produce will help us to determine more precisely how racial inequality may continue to be systematically produced within the web's political economy. Thus, future research should both replicate aspects of this study to determine whether similar patterns of racial segregation and disparate site valuations are present and develop new research designs aimed at determining the tangible gains and harms produced by such patterns of web traffic.…”

“…Race, and racial categories historically exist much the same way. Rights, power, privilege, advantage, access and disadvantage: all -more or less -are social characteristics afforded raced individuals and is accounted for through bureaucratic systems that have an interest in tracking both (Morning, 2011;Morning & Sabbagh, 2005). I belabor the point to highlight the contrasting reality that, for all intents and purposes, neither the individual, nor racial categories are similarly salient within the basic structure of the web.…”

Social Statistics and Ethnic Diversity

“…Among social scientists, however, counting and classifying people is seen fi rst and foremost as a political endeavour ( Anderson 1991 ). As a political process, the census is infl uenced by pressures exerted from the 'top down,' as well as the 'bottom up' (Arel 2002 ;Bonnet and Carrington 2000 ;Kertzer and Arel 2002 ;Morning and Sabbagh 2005 ;Nobles 2000 ;Prewitt 2000 ;Rallu et al 2006 ). From the former vantage point, ethnic classifi cations and categories are seen as an extension of hierarchical arrangements and dominant group interests.…”

“…Evidence of bottom up politics may be seen in the shifting purpose of ethnic data collection, from a tool for maintaining minorities' sub-ordinance, to one that helps ensure compliance with anti-discrimination legislation (Morning and Sabbagh 2005 ;Simon 2005 ). In many developed, multicultural countries ethnic minorities have successfully lobbied to have ethnic distinctions recognised in offi cial data collections, and sometimes to have their group identities explicitly listed on offi cial forms.…”