Racism in Uniform Birth Record States Until 1989

Here's a little tidbit that didn't make it into Classified.

For uniform birth record states:

Prior to 1989, for statistical purposes, classification of the child's race or national origin was based on the race or national origin of the parents. When both parents were not of the same race or national origin, rules had been established for coding various combinations. If only one parent was white, the child was assigned the race of the other parent. If neither parent was white, the child was assigned the race of the father…

So if your father was white and your mom was black, you were tallied as black on your birth record. However, if your father was Asian and your mom was black, you were classified as Asian. Amazing (and appalling) that this was the law in many states until 1989!

Comments

[Ghost of Patrick Henry]

Is it any different than we have now? Now we have made up races and pretend ethnic groups and fake minorities getting special treatment under law.

[Sarcastr0]

Race is a social construct.

Welcome to the ranks of the woke, sir!

[Magister]

Why would this be appalling, or more appalling than the better-known one-drop rule which would seem to imply this rule (except for the children of two non-white parents of different races; also a Google book result with this quote goes on to report a special rule for Hawaiians that was omitted from the quote)?

If it is the policy choice to have statistics on race at birth, the options are to classify people by percentages of ancestry (which would be thwarted by the uncertainty of racial percentages prior to adopting such a uniform birth record, and would be a political dead letter anyway), or creating a separate category for mixed people (like "colored" in apartheid South Africa).

Not clear why someone would pick on such a choice, unless their agenda were to discredit racial statistics generally to hide evidence of racism. Oh, right.

[Michael P]

I think the shocking part is not that this rule was worse in effect than the "one drop" rule -- it largely had the same effects -- but that it was used until 1989.

[Magister]

If everyone were purely white or black when this was first implemented, then this policy would be equivalent to the one-drop rule. But perfect use of the one-drop rule would classify many obviously white people as non-white. Is there evidence that the parents' birth certificates were consulted to determine race, or were their races judged by appearance, social status, etc.? I expect the latter would be the case at a time when people might not have birth certificates.

Probably most parents would not question the result of this policy; relatively few interracial marriages, and anyway race would be judged by factors other than birth certificates. Therefore not much happening to push for a change, compared to challenges to active discrimination in so many other areas, and so maybe just as surprising that it didn't continue longer.

[grb]

Magister : ".... relatively few interracial marriages ...."

More than many people might guess :

"In 2019, 11% of all married U.S. adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3% in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19%) were intermarried."

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/25/in-vice-president-kamala-harris-we-can-see-how-america-has-changed/

[Magister]

OK, but 3% in 1967 doesn't seem like a lot. I'm just arguing against the idea that not changing this until 1989 is somehow the worst aspect of this policy.

[Stephen Lathrop]

It does not make it all the way to amazing, but it is a bit surprising how out of touch Bernstein and so many others who comment here remain about the breadth and durability of anti-black racism during the 20th century. Or now, for that matter.

It has been polite to imagine that a lot of that has been nothing more than residual/habitual bias, mostly unconscious, without much of the old-style malice in it. An anti-racist who gets that impression needs to stay mindful that virulent racists know when they are not talking to one of their own.

We are almost past the point where it is commonplace anywhere for a racist to assume a newcomer to his group will be fine with the N-word. Evidence of reluctant caution among virulent racists is very far from evidence to assert ours is a post-racist society.

[Michael P]

Yes, virulent racists nowadays are likely to respond by shouting "shame" at classmates going to listen to a federal judge's speech. They know when they are taking to someone who does not hold such bigotry in their heart.

[David Bernstein]

This is not, in fact, an example of "anti-blac" racism specifically. A white and not-white couple's kid was put down as not-white. And rather than using a one-drop rule for blacks, for mixed black/not-white couples, the race went according to the father. But thanks for playing.

[grb]

Your “specifically” isn’t entirely persuasive. I suspect Stephen Lathrop is right, and the twisted logic of the law was driven (to a large degree) by this country’s white-black race obsessions. Granted, there’s no proof at hand to establish that, but it seems likely. As S.L. notes, this kind of racism permeated the country in many equally bizarre ways.

(but – hey! – thanks for playing)

[shawn_dude]

Because non-Black people of color back then were treated so much better?
-Chinese? (Chinese Exclusion Act)
-Japanese? (Concentration camps)
-Native Americans? (Fourteenth Amendment "excluding Indians not taxed" making them non-citizens.)
-Mexicans (so-called Juan Crow laws in border states like Texas where "whites only no Mexicans" signs were common.)

Are there really that many racists out there that target only one race? We often describe racists, and bigots in general, based on their preferred target, hence "anti-Black racism," but I've never encountered a racist who was perfectly comfortable with every other race. Generally, racists are really for their own race, as in White nationalism, even if we attempt to describe them in other terms. Maybe it's just easier to call White nationalists what they're for rather than what they're against.

[grb]

shawn_dude : “Are there really that many racists out there that target only one race?”

Perhaps not, but there are matters of degree. I hold the obsession over black-white “miscegenation” far exceeds anything you’d find with – say – Native Americans or Mexicans. After all, Loving v. Virginia addressed a law banning marriage between people classified as “white” and people classified as “colored”.

To ignore the special place anti-black racism has in this country is to turn a blind-eye to a mountain of evidence. That’s why I think it highly likely that racism played an oversized role in the laws that Professor Bernstein discusses.

[grb]

On a related front, there’s a NYT story today on social studies textbook publishers trying to appease Ron DeSantis. Using Rosa Parks as an example, it examines textbooks/pamphlets for very young students. The current version says this:

“In 1955, Rosa Parks broke the law, In her city, the law said African Americans had to give up their seat on the bus if a white person wanted to sit down. She would not give up her seat. The police came and took her to jail.”

The publisher submitted a revision saying this :

“Rosa Parks showed courage. One day, she rode the bus, She was told to move to a different seat because of the color of her skin. She did not. She did what she believed was right.”

Not good enough, and so revised again :

“Rosa Parks showed courage. One day, she rode the bus, She was told to move to a different seat. She did not. She did what she believed was right.”

[Toranth]

Who rejected the original version?
In what way did it not comply with Florida laws?

Or did the publisher make these changes on their own, and then either not submit or withdraw the textbook before the review process, before 'informing' the New York Times?

Well, maybe, maybe not - the NYT didn't ask. But what does the Florida Dept. of Education, which was supposedly rejecting those textbooks, have to say?

Any publisher that "avoids the topic of race when teaching the Civil Rights movement, slavery, segregation, etc. would not be adhering to Florida law"

Hmm.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yes, Chinese, Japanese, and Mexicans have been treated badly in the United States. But treated far, far, better than blacks and native Americans. The latter suffered actual genocidal war, waged as a matter of official policy, and renewed again and again across centuries, from the 17th century all the way into the 20th century. However episodically bad treatment of Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans has been, nothing remotely like that Native American experience was inflicted on those other groups.

Arguably, the black American experience was different than the Native American experience, but it cannot be said to have been more benign. For blacks, persecution was similar in duration, and although less often intentionally deadly than for native Americans, it was more consistently, pervasively, and comprehensively severe during almost that entire interval. A notable but soon-eclipsed difference was that it took a bit longer for anti-black persecution to get fully underway, even after the first black slaves were imported in the early 17th century.

Nothing in the historical record of America suggests any groups suffered official deprivations comparable to those suffered by black Americans and native Americans. For that reason I have argued since the early 1970s that America's national policy of racially-based amelioration should be directed only to those two groups.

It is easy to see in retrospect that the practice to argue by flawed analogy, and extend amelioration policies beyond native Americans and black Americans was unwise. The nation scarcely had capacity to deliver amelioration to the most-affected victims. The capacity to do it became hopelessly diluted after competition took hold to broaden the class of recipients. While the effectiveness of the policy was compromised, the resentments it engendered became amplified, and then more-narrowly focus. Both the costs and the resentments settled finally and disproportionately on a diminished demographic, consisting mostly of lower-status white males.

When in the 1960s the nation awoke to its long-neglected racial responsibilities, it took stock of the costs to ameliorate them, and recoiled. But what finally happened was a, "compromise." What everyone agreed was too great an expense for the entire nation to endure from its treasury, would be deemed affordable if paid in kind by that much smaller subset of unlucky targets. For an added dollop of moral hazard, the prospect of expansion without limit among the classes of beneficiaries was bruited by implication, and enthusiastically taken up.

There is much more to be said about mismanagement of well-meaning but astoundingly mis-practiced policies along these lines. I have been saying some of it in writing, and in person among close friends, since the 1970s. I very well understand on that basis what is meant by the term, "thankless task." I know from experience the fastest-acting means to become a skunk in a garden party in Brookline, MA.

[Seamus]

Huh? What happened in 1989?

[Frank Drackman]

1989?? Only one of the most important events in World History.
Alabama came to Auburn for the "Iron Bowl" (and lost 30-20)
Oh yeah, the Berlin Wall came down, big whoop

Frank "162 days until College Foo-bawl"

[John F. Carr]

Were you, or are you, obliged to check boxes on government forms consistent with your race assigned at birth?

[David Bernstein]

I believe in those days a hospital official would fill out the form. Today, I don't know of any law, beyond general fraud provisions, that requires you to try to match what you check to official (or any) definitions. In fact, one of the odd things about American racial classifications is that when you are asked to check boxes, you aren't given the definitions.

[Moderation4ever]

It would also be worthwhile to look at and think about the origins of these laws. We know when slavery was allowed that it was the mothers race that was assigned to the child. Thus, allowing masters to hold their own children in bondage. After slavery ended, rules like this would deny access to voting and services. Much is made of the fact that in recent years race has allowed a person a foot in the door, while the majority of the years it allowed the door to be shut in a person face.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Or one could argue that much is made of the fact that race was once used to shut the door in a person’s face and now 60 years (2 or 3 generations!) of enormous progress (including race being a “foot in the door) is being substantially ignored.

Half empty or half full? And which is more salient to people living today?

[ReaderY]

For pattilineal descent, one could argue that it’s sexist. But why racist? Sex-specific inheritance of various kinds was used a lot in a lot of contexts. What makes this different? Professor Bernstein has noted from time go time that he is Jewish. Traditional Judaism’s matrilineal descent, for example, has been criticized as sexist. But has it ever been criticized as racist? Why would this be different?

For white being considered recessive, so you needed two white parents to be white, under the traditional black/white focus, this is the way things were defined. Mullattos, quadroons, octoroons and all that were considered non-white. Yes, that was racist. But what is the purpose of having classifications? if uou want to measure racism, you have to measure things from a racist point of view. If you want racial classifications that address whether discrimination is still prevalent, which was one of the main purposes of collecting data, then you have to collect data in a manner that’s relevant to evaluating discrimination. And for that purpose, non-white has to be classified based on what a discriminator considers to be non-white. Otherwise any attempt to measure discrimination would lead to a lot of spurious results. Discrimination would appear to be going down, falsely, simply because a lot of the people being discriminated against (for being partially black) would be classified as white and therefore not recognized as being subject to racial discrimination under the classification system. To measure the effects of racism accurately, you need to classify things as racists would.

[ReaderY]

When Professor Bernstein suggests ways to improve racial classifications, he is on solid ground. But when he says chuck the whole thing because steict scrutiny requires perfect classifications and this classification system is imperfect, he’s on much shakier ground.

No classification system is perfect. As Justice Holmes pointed out there is no sharp border between day and night, only shades of gray. And for that reason, the law never requires perfection, even for strict scrutiny.

Requiring perfection or else torpedo the whole thing is just a rhetorical tactic for torpedoing something one doesn’t like. And it’s a spurious tactic. People never require perfection for classifications they like.

One ought to give the real reasons one doesn’t like this kind of classification, not spurious pseudological rhetorical ones that only get trotted out for things one doesn’t like and never for things one likes.

[Frank Drackman]

So we're not supposed to judge people based on Race, even if one Race is much more likely to commit Armed Robbery, Murder, Rape, I mean, have 40" Vertical Leap, no judgement based on Race, so lets classify everyone based on Race (I'm 1/2 Irish, 1/2 Jewish (the good half) but of course I'm classified exactly the same as Mitt Romeney.

Frank "Why isn't it "Luck of the Jewish" or "Jewish Coffee"??

[grb]

Frank Drackman : "So we’re not supposed to judge people based on Race ..... (etc)"

So we're not supposed to judge people based on sex, even if one sex commits 89.5% of the murders.

[Artifex]

To measure the effects of racism accurately, you need to classify things as racists would.

No, you really don't. I don't need to read and completely understand the Malleus Maleficarum to say: "Stop persecuting ugly women with cats. It is bad for society". Nor do I need figure out whether someone's grandmother had certain disfiguring warts and award them sums of cash plundered from the public treasury. One should be seeking to end stupid behavior, not perpetuate it.

The argument against racism is not at its base utilitarian. We do not dislike it because because the "wrong" people are benefitting. Well, at least you don't if you are not progressive.

If you are setting up rules based on giving special privilege to people with a certain number of freckles on their left hand, rather than have lawyerly arguments about how far up the left arm the number of freckles should be counted or whether we should really be looking at the right arm, we note the distinction is fundamentally stupid and we should not be making such laws.

[bevis the lumberjack]

How do you even begin to believe you can measure the effects of racism “accurately”?

Too many competing causes not related to racism to isolate one cause and way too much bias (both ways) on the part of the calculators.

[gVOR08]

Indeed. I've been looking for a traditional Latin name for the very common fallacy I refer to as the "fallacy of imperfection". If lack of perfection were a valid argument for why something should not be done nothing would ever be done. And somehow the people who discriminate don't seem to be bothered by the ambiguities and inconsistencies.

[Michael P]

This is the racist part: "If only one parent was white, the child was assigned the race of the other parent."

[David Bernstein]

"But why racist?"

(1) Because if you had one white and one non-white parent, you would be tabulated based on the race of the non-white parent.

and

(2) Because the whole system as detailed rejects recognizing that someone can be of "mixed" racial origin, instead you must be one or the other, but you can't be more than one.

[Frank Drackman]

Ahh, my favorite part of the Reader’s Digest “Racism in Uniform”

[Frank Drackman]

One of the best MLB Putdowns of all time, Mickey Rivers (Lefty) said to another Lefty, Regginald Martinez Jackson

"No wonder you're all fucked up. You got a white man's first name, a Spanish man's second name and a black man's third name."

Frank

[Krayt]

Prior to 1989, for statistical purposes, classification of the child's race or national origin was based on the race or national origin of the parents. When both parents were not of the same race or national origin, rules had been established for coding various combinations. If only one parent was white, the child was assigned the race of the other parent. If neither parent was white, the child was assigned the race of the father…

Well, at least they're CMMI level 2, documented process, instead of ad hoc bs. Here, the ad hoc is documented.

[Mr. Bumble]

Checking to see how you're classified?