Every 10 years the US government conducts the Census questionnaire to help them decide how to spend $400 billion to communities across the country. Ever since 1850, the basic questions have pretty much been the same, the one question that has evolved the most is the race question. Last time we checked, this is 2010, so why is the word Negro still used to classify black people in the United States???
From 1850-1880 the race options were simple, White, Black and Mulatto. From 1900 – 1940 they asked everyone what was their color or race and they had to fill in the blank. In 1950 and 1960, the word Negro appeared as an option along with White, American Indian etc. From 1970 to 1990, the option became Black or Negro and in 2000 the word African-American became apart of that option.
When it comes to describing white people in America on the Census form, it’s only one word that describes, so why do black people need, three words to describe one race… Black, Negro or African-American.
This morning on a local radio station in Atlanta, a guest on the show said:
White people were able to name themselves and have only and always been classified as one thing. Then white people in America gave black people these different names, so now they don’t know what to call us.
A woman called into the radio station said:
I am 53 years-old. My birth certificate says that my race is Negro and because of that the word never bothered me, it’s just a description.
We asked our staff what their birth certificate classifies them as and all of them said black but two staff members parents were born in the 1940s and their parents birth certificates classifies them as Colored.
There should just be one word that classifies black people in America and that word is BLACK. We no longer live in a time where it is acceptable to refer to a black person as Negro and/or Ni**er, so why is the term Negro still apart of the 2010 Census Questionnaire???
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