Showing posts with label 2010 Census. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010 Census. Show all posts

Monday, April 19, 2010

Obama Checked "Afro-American" On Census; Neglected To Mention "Irish"

Obama identified himself as being Afro-American on his 2010 Census form. President Barack Obama checked the "black or Afro-American" box on the 2010 Census form. Obama could have checked the "white" box or "some other race" box. Or Barack Obama could have checked both the "white" and  "black or Afro-American" boxes, due to the fact that his father was black and his mother white.

The question is: Why did Barack Obama identify himself as being exclusively "black or Afro-American" on the 2010 Census? Technically, Barack Obama is "biracial," meaning two races, and not exclusively one race. There were 784,764 biracial American residents who checked both the "white" and "black or Afro-American" boxes on the 2010 census form. "This is only the second census to allow people to identify themselves by more than one race. About 7 million people, or 2.4 percent of the U.S. population, chose that option in 2000." 1

Obama obviously wants future historians to describe him in history books as having been the first "black or Afro-American" U.S. President. But this is a half-truth. How is President Barack Obama's decision to not declare himself as being "biracial" fair to a possible future "black or Afro-American" U.S. President who might not happen to be biracial?

This hypothetical future Afro-American U.S. President would go down in history books as having been the second Afro-American U.S. President, instead of the first Afro-American U.S. President. To complicate this matter even further, what if this hypothetical future Afro-American U.S. President turns out to be a conservative Republican instead of a liberal Democrat?

To make things less complicated, Barack Obama could have just declared himself as being "Irish" on his 2010 Census form. *See My Related Post below.

1 Black or biracial? Census forces a choice for some
By JESSE WASHINGTON
The Associated Press

Related Links

Why Did Obama Check "Afro-American" On 2010 Census?
topix forum discussion on The New REPUBLIC Post,
Census Nonsense Why Barack Obama isn’t black. John B. Judis


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