White Americans, welcome to the club of being asked, 'Where are you really from?'

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

White Americans, welcome to the club of being asked, ‘Where are you really from?’

By Christine Emba Columnist February 2 at 3:28 PM

In 2020, perhaps for the first time, white Americans will be asked a question that has been lobbed innocently and invidiously at minorities for years: “So where are you really from?”

And it will be the government doing the asking.

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed its proposed questionnaire for the 2020 Census in advance of a March 31 deadline for its delivery to Congress for review. The updated format did not accommodate many suggestions made since 2010. It doesn’t ask about citizenship status (despite a request to do so by the Trump Justice Department) and won’t include a separate Middle Eastern and North African category in its question about race.

But there are some key changes to the questions about race and ethnicity. In particular, black and white respondents will be asked to provide specific information about their origins. Rather than just marking a single race, respondents will be prodded for a bit more information: For the text box under the “White” checkbox, the census instructions helpfully state: “Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.”

The data obtained is likely to be extremely messy, and it is not immediately clear how it will be put to use. (What exactly does the Census Bureau plan to do for the emergent category of white Egyptians?) Still, this change is a good thing — especially for white Americans.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/white-americans-where-are-you-really-from/2018/02/02/dc324fb2-0843-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. My answer: "I'm from this shithole place. What else do you want to know?"

[htuttle]

2. How far back do they want us to go?

It better be a really big text box...

[tazkcmo]

3. Mom always said

"We found you under a giant mushroom."
So, that is how I will respond. Mushroom.

[redstatebluegirl]

6. My Mom said we were found in the cabbage patch so I guess I'll say cabbage patch.

Is that a shithole place?

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I have no idea. Haven't done Ancestry DNA.

[Yonnie3]

5. They will need a "many of the above" box for me.

I've been told I have the proverbial wandering Jew, Russian, Welsh, English and who knows what else. Some ancestors from colonial times and some from just after the Civil War who didn't speak English well if at all. I don't know how I would answer. I also think it is none of the governments business.

The white supemacist's Euro-centric beliefs make the existence of data regarding subsets of whiteness troublesome.

"Still, this change is a good thing — especially for white Americans." I read the article at the Post and don't really accept the goodness/effectiveness of the opinion that "the census may begin to help break down our country’s persistent belief in whiteness as some monolithic norm."

[whathehell]

7. Not new to this White Person, I'm afraid..

I've had my ethnicity and even race questioned on several occasions throughout my life.
Arriving home from a vacation in the Carribean awhile back, a Customs official looked at me and said "Where we're you born?... Were I less taken aback, I might have asked him where HE was born, but instead just said "Um, Philadelphia"?
I don't speak with an accent and, as confirmed by Ancestry.com, am of 100% European stock, so go figure..