The Census doesn't ask people about their religion. Why not stop putting Americans in pseudo-racial boxes?, asks Michael Lind.
The federal government's racial/ethnic categories are absurd, he writes. The new Middle Eastern or North Africans (MENA), category combines Jews, Arabs and Iranians as "people of color." ("Iran" derives from "homeland of the Aryans," he points out.) Portuguese-Americans will be "white," but Spanish-Americans -- or blue-eyed blondes from South America -- will not. "Asian" lumps together Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese with Indians, Vietnamese and Filipinos.
"Since the 1970s, the unspoken rationale for America’s system of half a dozen official pseudo-races is to identify Americans eligible for rewards from the ever-expanding racial patronage racket," Lind writes. Let's stop.
Identity politics isn't working for the Democrats, he argues. "The various national immigrant diasporas lumped together arbitrarily as 'Hispanics' and 'AAPI' are acting like the new Irish and the new Italians, not the new blacks."
Interracial marriage is way up for U.S.-born Asians and Hispanics, and for black Americans, writes Lind. "The melting pot, which once fused dozens of European immigrant ethnicities into a common American community, is now melting away racial differences as well."
Governments should not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, or religion (except as necessary). Non-State actors should be free to discriminate on the basis of any silly reason whatsoever.
Restore common law freedom of association and freedom of contract. Enforce the 14th Amendment against government-sanctioned discrimination.
Subsidize escape options from the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's wretched and abusive juvenile detention facilities.