“Negro” Census Form Listing Creates Discomfort For Some African-Americans
It’s a new decade, which means that the US Census Bureau is working hard at getting America’s more than 300 million residents to fill out a 10-question form that determines how the federal government distributes its money.
But there’s one question that is causing some controversy: The section that asks poll takers to identify their race. Here are a few of your options: “Black, African American or Negro”. While many young Blacks are infuriated by the use of the outdated term, the Census Bureau says they chose the word because a small percentage of older people of color still identify with it. The Grio reports that many older blacks preferred to be called “Negro.” “Some prefer it because of their complexion, whether they’re light-skinned or dark,” said Jeanne R. Stanley, a retiree in Richmond, Va. “Others still have a slave mentality. There are a lot of people who still have a color complex.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t let the racial hump in America bother me anymore. Call me what you want. As long as you don’t touch me, I won’t mace you 
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On January 9th 2010, Chris Sander wrote:
As long as we label people as green, purple or whatever or try to identify ethnicity there will be racism and bias. In my view there is only one race and that is Human.
On January 9th 2010, Bubba Gump wrote:
Once again it appears Blacks in this country want to re-write the world to suit themselves. Negro is short for Negroid which is the actually scientific word for this particular race of people. African-American is a slang and for the most part is completely inaccurate as very few Blacks in this country are from Africa. Most are from a very long line that eventually leads back to Africa, but it isn’t like they were born there, have ever been there, or even speak a language from there.
This is just another case of ignorant misguided whiners attempting to re-write history just as they attempted to do with the Civil War and the South, and as they have tried to do by controlling what pronouns people can use when speaking to them.
On April 11th 2010, Mara wrote:
Recently, I found the 2010 Census form hanging on my door. As I began filling it out, I came across a dilemma. The U.S. government wants to know if my children are adopted or not and it wants to know what our races are. Being adopted myself, I had to put “Other” and “Don’t Know Adopted” for my race and “Other” and “Don’t Know” for my kids’ races.
Can you imagine not knowing your ethnicity, your race? Now imagine walking into a vital records office and asking the clerk for your original birth certificate only to be told “No, you can’t have it, it’s sealed.”
How about being presented with a “family history form” to fill out at every single doctor’s office visit and having to put “N/A Adopted” where life saving information should be?
Imagine being asked what your nationality is and having to respond with “I don’t know”.
It is time that the archaic practice of sealing and altering birth certificates of adopted persons stops.
Adoption is a 5 billion dollar, unregulated industry that profits from the sale and redistribution of children. It turns children into chattel who are re-labeled and sold as “blank slates”.
Genealogy, a modern-day fascination, cannot be enjoyed by adopted persons with sealed identities. Family trees are exclusive to the non-adopted persons in our society.
If adoption is truly to return to what is best for a child, then the rights of children to their biological identities should NEVER be violated. Every single judge that finalizes an adoption and orders a child’s birth certificate to be sealed should be ashamed of him/herself.
I challenge all readers: Ask the adopted persons that you know if their original birth certificates are sealed.