Social Engineering By Census

Does racial discrimination still exist in the United States? If so, how does it show? One manifestation, perhaps the biggest, is in the US Government. As it prepares to fulfill its constitutional responsibility under Article I, Section 2 to count how many people live here, let’s ponder what the Census has become. Its original purpose was to figure out how many seats in the US House of Representatives each state gets as our population grows and shifts, but America’s obsession with race has expanded the function of this basic count. Right now, there’s a political struggle to add even more racial categories to the 2020 census. Why? Well, the Census Bureau itself brags that the data it collects determines how and where $400 billion of federal money is spent, much of it according to race.

Article I Section 2 originally mandated that Congress count: “the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons… within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”

Linda Sarsour

The “Manner” Congress has subsequently directed leads us to look at ourselves not as Americans, but as members of some oppressed minority competing for taxpayer funds. Left-wing activist Linda Sarsour is lobbying the Office of Management and Budget to include another racial category President Obama wanted: “MENA” for “Middle East and North Africa.” Sarsour calls herself a Palestinian American. She wants Persians, Arabs, Turks, Lebanese, and Somalis and Sudanese to be categorized under that label too. Why? She explains:

“When we look at accessing federal, you know, any types of federal support, for example, we lose out dramatically because we don’t have a separated category … because we are quote ‘white,’ we are not seen as a priority area for city or state or federal funding.”

At least she’s honest about it. According to the Heritage Foundation, Sarsour wants: “Another ‘oppressed’ group that will be eligible for racial preferences (‘affirmative action,’ ‘disparate impact,’ ‘underrepresentation,’ etc.) in employment, college admissions, federal contracts, and congressional redistricting.” She wants a bigger slice of the $400 billion pie.

Under the first census conducted in 1790, the head of household was listed as well as number of “free white males” over and under sixteen, the number of “free white females,” the number of “free persons” (boarding in household) and the number of slaves. That was all. No questions about race, but we can assume the slaves were black. Ten years later more questions about the ages of both free white males and free white females were asked. Twenty years later, data on the number of factories in a given district were gathered. In 1820, the census takers asked the ages and sexes of slaves, as well as whether people worked as farmers, factory workers, or other commerce, and counted “foreigners not naturalized.” In 1830, more specific data on ages of white males and females, slaves, as well as the number of all who were deaf, dumb, or blind was determined.

In 1850 came the first questions on race. There were two broad categories: “Free Inhabitants” and “Slave Inhabitants,” but free non-white inhabitants were differentiated between “black” and “mulatto.” Also gathered were values of real estate owned, data on occupation, place of birth, marital status, schooling, literacy, and if person was "deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict.” Slaves were given numbers, not names, and classified black or mulatto. Listed under “Owner” were “uncaught escaped slaves in the past year”; “the number of slaves freed from bondage in the past year” and, “is the slave deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic?”

More race questions came in 1870 with categories for Chinese and [American] Indian. In 1890: “Enumerators were instructed to write ‘White,’ ‘black,’ ‘Mulatto,’ ‘Quadroon,’ ‘Octoroon,’ ‘Chinese,’ ‘Japanese,’ or ‘Indian.’”

More questions about Indians came in 1900, including tribal affiliation, “Fraction of person's lineage that is white”; “Is this person living in polygamy?”; “Is this person taxed?” A note on the Census site explained: “An American Indian was considered "taxed" if he or she was detached from his or her tribe and was living in the White community and subject to general taxation.

“Mulatto” was dropped in 1930 and “Mexican” added, but only that year. “Hindu” was called a race. Mixed black and white was marked as Black. Mixed Indian and white was marked as “Indian.” Ethnic questions were increased in 1970, asking about Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Central American, or “Other Spanish” descent. Now those groups also want to be classified as a “race” separate from white in 2020. If you’re not white, you're eligible for a piece of the pie.

Whenever I’m asked to describe my race, I write in “human,” and refuse to go any further. How soon before government substitutes the subjective term “gender” for the scientific term “sex” and how many categories will there be? Five? Ten? Thirty? How long before questions about sexual preference are included? They were drafted under the Obama Administration but dropped by the Trump Administration last March. Had Hillary won, they’d have been on there for 2020.