If you’ve ever filled out federal documents for a job, college application, or healthcare provider, you’re probably familiar with questions about race and ethnicity that consist of five racial categories — American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and white — and one ethnic category — Hispanic or Latino. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sets these categories.
On March 29, 2024, the OMB announced it would revise the race and ethnicity categories used in the U.S. Census.
In an article he wrote for the UCLA Humanities Division, Professor Kareem Khalifa offers a philosophical perspective on the new OMB race and ethnicity classifications.
“The most striking aspect of that decision is that the OMB no longer draws a sharp line between race and ethnicity,” writes Khalifa.
“[A]s a philosopher, I believe this question — the deceptively complex notion of how we define the terms “race” and “ethnicity” — extends the age-old philosophical question about the nature of reality. In this case, the emphasis is on social rather than physical reality.
Read the full article here: https://humanities.ucla.edu/news/khalifa-philosophical-questions-census-race-ethnicity/