NYT/ Counting by Race Can Throw Off Some Numbers

[twa]

Screwed up mess...as usual

either set standards for all classifications or do away with them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/us/10count.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1297346518-IhvqNz6bru3ZHoREREnfPg

The federal Department of Education would categorize Michelle López-Mullins — a university student who is of Peruvian, Chinese, Irish, Shawnee and Cherokee descent — as “Hispanic.” But the National Center for Health Statistics, the government agency that tracks data on births and deaths, would pronounce her “Asian” and "Hispanic." And what does Ms. López-Mullins’s birth certificate from the State of Maryland say? It doesn’t mention her race.

Ms. López-Mullins, 20, usually marks “other” on surveys these days, but when she filled out a census form last year, she chose Asian, Hispanic, Native American and white.

The chameleon-like quality of Ms. López-Mullins’s racial and ethnic identification might seem trivial except that statistics on ethnicity and race are used for many important purposes. These include assessing disparities in health, education, employment and housing, enforcing civil rights protections, and deciding who might qualify for special consideration as members of underrepresented minority groups.

...

In the process, however, a measurement problem has emerged. Despite the federal government’s setting standards more than a decade ago, data on race and ethnicity are being collected and aggregated in an assortment of ways. The lack of uniformity is making comparison and analysis extremely difficult across fields and across time.

Under Department of Education requirements that take effect this year, for instance, any student like Ms. López-Mullins who acknowledges even partial Hispanic ethnicity will, regardless of race, be reported to federal officials only as Hispanic. And students of non-Hispanic mixed parentage who choose more than one race will be placed in a “two or more races” category, a catchall that detractors describe as inadequately detailed. A child of black and American Indian parents, for example, would be in the same category as, say, a child of white and Asian parents.

The new standards for kindergarten through 12th grades and higher education will probably increase the nationwide student population of Hispanics, and could erase some “black” students who will now be counted as Hispanic or as multiracial (in the “two or more races category”).

[SnyderShrugged]

I check a different race everytime I get the chance

[twa]

I just write American under other

There is some value to statistics IF done right.

[jnhay]

I've always disliked categorizing my race. The choices for me are either Hispanic or Caucasian, and there is rarely something in between.

[Hubbs]

I found out a little while ago that I might be something like 1/64 Jewish. I've never felt closer to the Hebrew Hammer.

[Seabee1973]

I put human on the last census they called me 3 times and sent 2 people to my APT each time saying the last call or person had nothing to do with the US Census but another guy verified my census had been mailed in so the didnt like my answer