Paul Taylor's Six-Part Substack Series: Where Did the Racial Boxes People Check on Forms Come From?

If you don't have the time or inclination to read my book, Classified: The Unknown Story of Racial Classification in America, attorney Paul Taylor provides a thorough summary, along with some commentary, at his (excellent) Substack.

Part 1 The illogical and politically-motivated process that led to the creation of official U.S. government racial classifications.

Part 2 The origins of America's arbitrary racial classification systems.

Part 3 (the very strange case of the "Hispanics" Classification)

Part 4 White Ethnic Groups and Black Immigrants

Part 5 How Are Children of Multi-Racial Parents Classified

Part 6 When arbitrary racial categories are used in unscientific ways, science suffers.

Comments

[David Nieporent]

For the record, I read Prof. Bernstein's book. It was good, though anyone who has read his posts here will find it pretty familiar. It fleshes out the historical record of how the current system developed — which I found interesting — but as a pure descriptive matter of the current system there's not much new.

[Roger S]

The M L King dream is dead. Identity politics is everything.

[NvEric]

Racial checkboxes are racist and divisive. There is only one race, Human.

Sometimes there are breakdowns for "Europeans" as if being here for over 400 years does not make one a native American. For myself, there is no family history other than that of being here since 1620 and 1639.

[Archibald Tuttle]

Some of the most persistent and pernicious discrimination that I've seen is against roma (gypsies). It's even worse in Europe than in America. On the other hand, the behavior of roaming bands of roma actually seems to conform to the worst of the stereotypes. Bernstein could write an intersting book about them.