Racial classifications, should they be eliminated?

If people are truly equal, there is absolutely no reason to sort folks by race.

This is one of those crazy California propositions I would vote for.
It would change America for the better.

But the Declaration of Independence only says - "All men are created equal". It is unrealistic to say that they are all treated as equals. Anyone who believes in true equality should ask themselves a critical question.

Is it possible to be equal and free at the same time?

What is being done with the information that is now collected? What was the original purpose in collecting it? Is collecting it doing anybody any good at all (besides providing employment for the collectors)?

When people's minds quit sorting according to race, we can talk about institutions following suit.

Something that has me guessing about Prop 54 is the Dr Koop ads on t.v.. He claims that Prop 54 is needed to track race for health reasons. Just wondering.

I'm guessing that this is one of those propositions in which no one is without an ulterior motive.

Kind of like those industry groups with names like "Committee for a Natural Environment."

My understanding is that the group that proposed "Prop 54" was pushing to eliminate race from being used as a factor in awarding scholarships and college grants.

There was a blurb about this prop on one of the news shows last night. Apparently CA stands to lose quite a bit if it passes. Many of the federal $$ that come into the state mandate usage reporting that often includes racial classifications. If the collection of the data is stopped the funds could dry up.

I strongly oppose proposition 54.

Being treated equally is a fine ideal, I believe this proposition has the exact opposite as it's goal.

By eliminating the collection of this data it will not be possible to determine if the people are being treated equally.

The guise of wanting all men to be equal is ludicrous. What is wanted is for no race data to be collected as this will severely undermine minority advocates and they will not have the data to illustrate disparity.

I allege that this proposition is motivated by racism rather than aiming to eliminate it (I do not rule out that some dopes support it and earnestly think it will help).

I am in favor of removing racial classification as it sometimes create confusion. When I was living in California I always get confuse on what box to check. Most often I check a box that says Asian but then somebody told me that although Filipinos are from Asia, they most resemble Hawaiian which is grouped as Pacific Islanders with Guamanians and Samoans. My sister who was born in California, in many instances was classified as Hispanic because of her fluency in Spanish and because of the color of her skin. To top it all the autopsy report of my father's death shows he was white. It was hard to collect insurance since he has always be listed as Asian or Pacific Islander.

I always check "other" and then write in "Hominid."

Eliminate the race boxes.
There is a box for those who wish not to divulge...nobody polices correct box checking... who knows if tracking is skewed, accurate... and, what Ricardo said.

I always check the 'none of your business' box on race and sex, because it shouldn't matter. I don't see how that information is relevant.

"none of the above" or "unknown" works for me

There is a big difference between an individual decision not to label oneself and the prohibition of the existence of information about racial inequality at all.

As it stands nobofy has to check those stupid boxes if they do not want to, prop 54 aims to make it illegal to have the knowledge with which we can determine if there is a disparity.

This is not a proposition about removing those boxes, it's a proposition making it illegal for the government to know whether there is racial inequality or not.

a wolf in sheeps clothing

Yes they should be quickly eliminated - for many reasons.

1. It is a violation of the basic principles of our constitution.
2. The classifications are arbitrary and represent only a small subset of the many categories into which our population could be mapped.
3. The various "racial" categories are increasingly meaningless as successive generations involve markedly more mixing among all groups.


Such an action will, of course, be steadfastly resisted by the diversity industry and by the many charlatans who style themselves as the spokesmen for this or that 'oppressed' group. The sad fact is that the chief side effect of all this is the corruption of the values and self-reliance of the very groups of people they promise to 'liberate'.

Waht "diversity industry?" Do you mean the folks opposed to oppression of others becasue of skin colour/gender/religious orientation? Oh, what bad people they are!

Classification and discrimination based on race is already illegal, this proposition is couched in misleading terms in that it does not address race "classification" except in the loosest word association.

It prevents the ability to gather data that is important to societal evaluation.

That the definitions for race are inadequate and that there do in fact exist rakehells and charlatans does not speak at all about this proposition. It's the misappropriated use of some of the more frustrating manefestations of the racial friction to bolster a proposition that would deny data to the society about how the society works.

It's predicated on the notion that we have solved most of the race issues, and that we no longer need to collect and analyze data to further improvement.

This proposition makes the method through which we could determine, say, if school funding is not equally distributed and whether there are racial factors involved.

The inadequacy of the labels is a problem inherent to labels. That labels are inadequate is a no-brainer but that there are racial differences and problems is undeniable, despite the inadequacies of the labels.

That there are rakehells and extremists is a manefestation of the friction and human idiocy. That the self-proclaimed race spokesmen will care about the denial of the collection of data is not a valid indictment of the proposal to deny the society infomation about how race affects them.

Aren't certain "races" predisposed to certain diseases like sickle cell anemia and diabetes for various reasons? Wouldn't it be worthwhile to track and treat these accordingly?