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Comment by jeffchien | Hacker News Reader

The problem might be "Hispanic or Latino" row, which is 16.4%. On (US or state) government forms that's usually a different question from race. See the second image here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/18/census-cons...

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Yep, this is exactly it. "Hispanic or Latino" is a question of ethnicity according to the Census Bureau:

> "People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as “American Indian” and “White.” People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race."

Basically it boils down to "Hispanic" or "Latino" being designations for country of origin, where Hispanic refers to anyone from a Spanish-speaking country, and Latino refers to anyone from Mexico or a Central- or South-American country. They're often used interchangeably in the US, though.

It's an endless rationalization to avoid talking about people who are of American (New World) descent as such. The thing most of the people targeted by the most aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric in the US share is that they are of American descent, and that's not a thing that you say.

Wow. Is that from the current admin? We are one human race. The origin of the word racism is from people who think there is more than one race which is scientifically incorrect.

The question about this should only ask about ethnicity.

Kindly explain your downvotes.

the link is from 2015.

In that link they don't use the word race. The above commenter wrote,

> On (US or state) government forms that's [Hispanic or Latino] usually a different question from race.

I've never seen this (before this census).

> In that link they don't use the word race.

The link specifically describes a (potential) move away from using the word, showing examples where they did and describing some of the history of when it was used. The comment you replied to even told you which specific image in the article to look at for an example...

Above poster suggested it's normal in US forms to separate a question about race and Hispanic ethnicity. I'm saying that isn't normal. The way the census broke this out appears to be subtly advancing the idea that there is more than one human race.

In my experience it's very normal. Every employment application I've ever completed, spanning a couple of decades, has had two optional questions that were phrased in exactly this way.

Did you fill out the census? See question 8. Lots and lots of US government forms that collect demographic data have a separate question asking if you're Latino/Hispanic.

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/tech...

The census you link is from the current admin and I was shocked to see it written that way. I don't think it's right or normal at all and I don't agree that this was standard practice prior to this admin.

> I don't think it's right or normal at all and I don't agree that this was standard practice prior to this admin.

It's normal (the basic structure has been used since 1980), though there was a proposal which didn't end up being used to consolidate the race and Hispanic origin questions for 2020.

Wikipedia writes,

> The 2010 US Census included changes designed to more clearly distinguish Hispanic ethnicity as not being a race. That included adding the sentence: "For this census, Hispanic origins are not races."

Government forms should simply ask about ethnicity, not race, and certainly shouldn't be asking both. I don't see why anyone who isn't racist would object to that. You can definitively call someone racist for listing ethnicities as different races.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Un...

"there is more than one race which is scientifically incorrect."

...not quite. There's definitely more than one race ;)

You misquote. I said people who think there is more than one race is the origin of the word racism. There is one human race and many ethnicities.

> Wow. Is that from the current admin?... Kindly explain your downvotes.

I did not downvote, but,

1) no, these racial and ethnic classifications have been used for decades

2) Trump is not relevant to Facebook Inspector

3) The philosophy of race and etymology of racism are at best a distraction from the topic at hand, and likely flamebait

I'm certainly not here to waste time advancing flamebait. I was simply shocked to hear that someone considers separating race and ethnicity as standard practice. I don't have anything more to add than that.

I don't have to worry about sickle cell disease.

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