Who is White?
| AR Articles on the Demographic Transformation |
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| Writing on the Wall (Aug. 2001) |
| Birth Rates: Who is Winning the Race? (Nov. 2000) |
| If We Do Nothing (Jun. 1996) |
| More news stories on the Demographic Transformation |
Everyone has by now seen the pictures of the September 11 terrorists. They were all swarthy, black-haired Middle Eastern-looking men in their 20s and 30s. Despite this, the FAA refuses to single out such people at airports for special scrutiny. In a letter published in the Wall Street Journal on October 31, 2001, an irate reader asked why airport security guards had hand-searched the purse and carry-on bag of his friend, a 45-year-old white woman. If the FAA would only study the FBI photos of the terrorists, he wrote, they would see “there are no Girl Scouts, no grandmothers, indeed no women. Nor are there any black American men, Hispanic American men, or white American men. They are all obviously Middle Eastern young men.”
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Famous white men…
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This writer makes the mistake of assuming that what is obvious to the average citizen is obvious to the U.S. government. Evidently, he is unaware that his government officially classifies all Middle Eastern people (Arabic, Turkic, Iranian, or Afghan) as white. In other words, according to our government, the terrorists were the same racial and ethnic stock as European Americans. This is part of a government policy of defining whiteness in a way that inflates the number of whites in America and obscures the extent of demographic change.
Many of the criteria by which the U.S. Bureau of the Census defined race for the 2000 census are confusing and suspect. Question 6 on the census form—directed to the census taker rather than the person being counted—asks: “What is this person’s race? Mark one or more races to indicate what this person considers himself/herself to be.” The census taker does not draw his own conclusions but instead records what he is told.
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…according to the
Census bureau. |
There is a box for White, one for Black, one for American Indian or Alaska Native, six boxes for various kinds of Asians (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese), plus a box for “Other Asian,” which requires a written entry. There are three boxes for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (Native Hawaiian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan) and one box for “Other Pacific Islander,” which also requires a written entry. The bureau classifies all who checked one of the four Pacific Islander boxes as “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander,” and all who checked any of the seven Asian boxes as “Asian.” For the latest census, the bureau created a seventh category for people who chose more than one box: “Two or More Races.” The bureau then put every resident into one of the seven categories, as shown in the table on this page.
These categories raise many questions. For example, why do Pacific Islanders—just 0.1 percent of the population—get their own racial category rather than be grouped with other Asians? Why are Indians from India grouped with East Asians when they are obviously a different racial type from Chinese and Japanese? The most obvious question is: Where are the Hispanics?
Part of the answer to the last question is that 14.9 million of them are “Some Other Race” (fully 97 percent of that category). According to the government, “Hispanics may be of any race,” and “race and Hispanic origin [are] two separate and distinct concepts.” Therefore, question 5 on the census form asks, “Is this person Spanish/Hispanic/Latino?” The answer can be either yes or no. Anyone who says yes is asked whether he is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or “Other Hispanic.” Hispanics can then choose their own race, with the results in the table on this page. The ones who end up in the “Some Other Race” category are those who do not consider themselves white, black, Indian or Asian. They might have written in “Cuban” or “Mexican,” but the census bureau cannot, on that basis, call them white, brown or black, so they are “other.”
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United
States Population, Year 2000
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| Race | Number | Percent |
| “White” | 211.4 million | 75.1 |
| Black | 34.6 million | 12.3 |
| Indian and Alaskan | 2.4 million | 0.9 |
| Asian | 10.2 million | 3.6 |
| Hawaiian and Pacific Islander | 0.4 million | 0.1 |
| Some Other Race | 15.3 million | 5.5 |
| Two or More Races | 6.8 million | 2.4 |
| Total Population | 281.4 million | 100 |
Note that almost half of all American Hispanics say they are white. While some—those of pure Spanish descent or South Americans of German or Italian stock—are undoubtedly white, are we to believe that half of all Hispanics living here are white? No one who has lived in or visited an area in which there are many Hispanics can believe that.
Why did so many make this choice? Partly, it is because the Census Bureau doesn’t offer realistic choices. A Mexican peasant is not likely to think of himself as black, Asian or American Indian (although many really are more Amerindian than anything else). At the same time, centuries of interracial mixing in Latin America plus the continuing prestige of whiteness (despite much anti-white propaganda) has led to a very broad definition of whiteness in Hispanic culture. These 2000 census results are remarkably similar to those of the 1996 Brazilian census, which reported that 52 percent of Brazilians think they are white.1
Although many Hispanics are Mestizo mixtures, only six percent say they are “two or more races.” Only two percent say they are black. Clearly, just as in Brazil, many Hispanics put themselves in the desirable “white” category, but since the bureau says “Hispanic” is not a racial category, they can do this without compromising their legally privileged standing in American law.
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Race of Hispanics |
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| Numbers | Percent of Hispanics | Percent of U.S. | |
| All Hispanics | 35.3 million | 100 | 12.5 |
| White Hispanics | 16.9 million | 47.9 | 6 |
| Black Hispanic | 0.7 million | 2 | 0.3 |
| American Indian | 0.4 million | 1.2 | 0.1 |
| Asian Hispanic | 0.1 million | 0.3 | - |
| Pacific Island | 0.04 million | 0.1 | - |
| Some Other Race | 14.9 million | 42.2 | 5.3 |
| Two or More Races | 2.2 million | 6.3 | 0.8 |
The census bureau takes the equally implausible view that the brown peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia are all white, too. It says the white category is for “people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as ‘White’ or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish” (italics mine). The government also considers people of Turkic, Iranian, and Afghan origin to be white. Pakistanis, on the other hand, are Asian. Thus, according to the U.S. government the frontiers of the white world extend up to Pakistan and black Africa.
As it does with Hispanics, the census bureau lets Middle Easterners choose their own race from among the four options of White, Black, “Some Other Race,” or a combination of these three. If they choose the white box, the bureau calls them white, no questions asked. If they choose the black box, the bureau calls them black. On the other hand, if a Middle Easterner chooses “Some Other Race” (which requires a written entry to explain what the race is) either by itself or in combination with White or Black, the bureau calls that person white. In other words, if an Egyptian checks Black and “Some Other Race” (writing in Egyptian), he is white. If an Iranian checks White and “some other race” (writing in Iranian or Persian), he is also white. If any Middle Easterner, North African, or Southwest Asian checks only “Some Other Race” (writing in his nationality) he is called white. A Middle-Easterner, say an Iranian, could call himself “Other Asian” and write in “Iranian;” the census bureau would still say he was white.
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Don’t worry … they’re
all white.
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Thus, despite the census bureau’s claim that race is a matter of “self-identification,” it calls a lot of brown people white, even though they clearly think they are not. And given that the census bureau took the trouble to distinguish between Guamanians and Samoans, and break down the Asian category into various groups, why didn’t it establish a category for Middle Eastern peoples?
Calling brown people white is so absurd that even journalists, not known for questioning government statistics, have wondered about it. The census bureau has so far offered no plausible explanation. In the early 1990s, at least one Arab organization formally proposed that the government establish a separate racial category for Middle Easterners and North Africans, but nothing happened.2 Jorge Del Pinal of the census bureau recently explained that the bureau “couldn’t get a handle on it.” He said the racial, religious, and language diversity of the area is so great the bureau gave up and decided to call everyone white.3
This is not believable. Perhaps the government is deliberately inflating the number of whites in the hope of calming fears of white dispossession. Another possibility is hesitation to establish a non-white, “Middle Eastern” category that would logically have included at least some Jews, and would raise the question of whether Jews are white. Or perhaps our rulers think that by diluting the definition of whiteness they can prevent the rise of white racial consciousness and solidarity.
Another fishy census category is “white alone or in combination,” which includes whites plus people who are part-white (those who chose one or more other racial boxes as well as white). Reportedly 6.8 million Americans said they belonged to two or more races. Of these, 74.1 percent said they were white and just one other race, and another six percent said they were white and more than one other race. Some people add these hybrids to the “white” population, thereby inflating the number of “whites” to 217 million.
Government officials, politicians, journalists, and ethnic lobbyists can use these various definitions of whiteness not only to misrepresent the actual number of whites in the United States but to cite different figures to suit particular purposes. For example, a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor minimized white dispossession by assuring readers that “if large numbers of them [Hispanics] identify themselves as white, then white society will predominate in the US (albeit with a Latino flavor) for decades to come,” and “throw in the 5.5 million people who describe themselves as white as well as one or more other races, and the [white] share climbs to 77.1 of the US population—a higher proportion than existed in 1830.” This reporter also noted (without indicating which definition of white he was using) that whites, at 63 percent, were still a majority in California.4 That figure includes both “white” Hispanics and mixed race “whites.” A more correct figure for whites in California in 2001 was 48 percent, as was noted by more honest reporters.5
Census statistics and permeable definitions of whiteness make it easy to minimize or maximize the demographic transformation to suit any purpose. By including Middle Easterners, “white” Hispanics, and “whites alone or in combination,” immigration enthusiasts can claim that nearly 80 percent of the country is still white! At the same time, when Hispanic lobbyists want to exercise power they can point to their growing numbers: 35 million people who are 12.5 percent of the population. Finally, by inflating the number of whites, the government can maintain the fiction of a white majority long after it has ceased to exist, and thus continue to use the majority/minority terminology that undergirds the racial spoils system that benefits non-whites.
How many whites are there in the country? It takes considerable hunting through census publications to find figures for what the bureau calls “non-Hispanic Whites:” 194.5 million, or 69 percent of the total. How many of these are Middle Eastern? There are no official census bureau figures for them, but the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee estimates there are three to four million Arab-Americans. My own conservative estimate of the number of people of Turkic, Armenian, Afghan, and Iranian ancestry (based on 2000 census ancestry reporting as well as immigration figures for these groups since 1965) is three million. Adding the low-end estimate of the Arab population (three million) to this Southwest Asian estimate results in six million. Subtracting that number from the non-Hispanic white base of 194.5 leaves 188.5 million European-Americans, or 67 percent of the US population. This figure still includes the doubtful 17 million or so Hispanics who claim to be white. Ten more years of massive non-white immigration will surely drop even this exaggerated white percentage below 60 percent by 2010 and, if immigration continues, to below 50 percent by 2025, a full 25 years before the census bureau predicts whites will become a minority.
The accompanying table shows year 2000 figures for whites, depending on the definition used.
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Different Definitions of White |
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| Total Population (millions) | 281.5 | 100% |
| White + Hispanic “Whites” + Mixed-Race “Whites” | 217 | 77.10% |
| White + Hispanic “Whites” | 211.5 | 75.10% |
| White - Hispanic “Whites” | 194.5 | 69.10% |
| White - Middle Eastern | 188.5 | 67.00% |
| White - Jewish | 182 | 64.60% |
| Nordic White (estimate) | 148.5 | 52.70% |
What is to be done about these shifting definitions? The first order of business is to educate the shrinking white majority about the census bureau’s confusing racial categories. We should pressure Congress to change its classifications. In particular, we need a category for North African, Middle Eastern, and Southwest Asian peoples. Even Arab-Americans want their own racial category (though this is partly because they want to benefit from racial preferences, from which they are now, at least officially, excluded). The events of September 11th make this an especially good time to push for such a change.
I would also suggest revamping the racial categories to make them far more complete and accurate. My proposal, outlined in the accompanying table, makes an important distinction between primary and secondary racial identities. Everyone would choose one primary and one secondary category, and no more. This system would also distinguish between people who are Spanish (and hence European) and those who are Hispanic (all or partly non-white). If the government is going to collect information on race, it should illuminate what is happening in our country rather than obscure it.
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Trask Classification System |
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| Primary 6) | Secondary (17) |
| White | 1) Nordic (English, Celtic,
German, Scandinavian) 2) Slavic (Russian, Baltic, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian) 3) Mediterranean (Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Jewish) |
| Middle Eastern | 1) Arabic 2) Turkic 3) Iranian 4) Afghan 5) Pakistani 6) Indian, Bangladeshi |
| Hispanic | 1) Amerindian 2) African 3) Mixed |
| Asian | 1) East Asian (Japanese, Korean, Chinese) 2) Southeast Asian (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Burmese, Indonesian, Filipino) 3) Pacific Islander 4) Amerindian or Native American |
| Black | 1) African 2) Melanesian 3) Aborigine |
| Mixed | Pick the two or three races from which you are descended. |
1Glayde Whitney, “The Galton Report,” American Renaissance, December 2000.
2Nicholas Kulish, “Why the Census of 2000 Failed to Count Arabs,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2001.
3Eduardo Porter, “Even 126 Sizes Don’t Fit All,” Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2001.
4Laurent Belsie, “Scholars Unearth New Field: White Studies,” Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 2001.
5Todd S. Purdum, “California Census Confirms Whites Are in Minority,” New York Times, March 30, 2001.
Dr. Trask is a historian who lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
(Posted on June 17, 2005)