WHAT RACE am I? You may not believe this, but my race is: I Prefer Not To Report.
I am an oddball. This is not your typical race.
I should know. I went to the doctor and was asked to fill out a medical history form. At the top of the questionnaire it asked for my race. These were the choices:
- American Indian/Alaskan native
- Asian
- Black/African American
- Hawaiian Native
- Other Pacific Islander
- Hispanic/Latino
- not Hispanic/Latino
- White
- And, finally, I Prefer Not to Report.
Yes, we are a racist country.
I define racism two ways: by hatred, and by obsession.
By hatred, we are no longer a racist country. This is a very unpopular opinion today. Yet, it is so. Anybody who thinks the US in 2015 is essentially the same as it was before the mid-1960s has a bad memory or is reading a bad history text.
Before the passage of the landmark Civil Rights bills of 1964 and 1965, blacks in the south could not vote.
Now they can.
Blacks could not live where they wanted.
Now they can.
Back then, blacks were discriminated against at lunch counters, bathrooms, drinking fountains, sports venues, churches, grocery stories, movie theaters, buses and just about every other public venue in the South.
No longer.
Back then, affirmative action did not exist.
Now it does.
Back then, virtually no blacks held public office no black legislators, city councilpeople, mayors, governors, etc.
Now black officeholders proliferate.
Back then, there were few black entertainers.
Now there are many.
Back then, the murder of blacks on racial grounds was common.
No longer. In fact, the mass murder in the Charleston church stands out so blatantly precisely because these types of events are now so rare.
Back then, blacks or African Americans did not even exist. There were, at best, Negroes; you can fill in the at worst: the N word.
Today, it is a different country. Mostly. Taken in historical context.
The Civil Rights movement was a dramatic success. But some people cannot take yes for an answer.
OH YES, we are still a racist country, but not racist on the basis of hatred, the pockets of hatred that undeniably still exist notwithstanding.
Rather, we are racist by obsession.
Obsessed with race.
With classification.
With erecting barriers of identity.
With ever expanding definitions of racial identity. With new categories every few years. (Honestly, did you know that Other Pacific Islander was a distinct race?)
Uh, I am 1/8 this, 1/4 that, 3/16 the other.
We are obsessed with, in a word, victimhood.
The racial hatred is mostly gone, but the sense of victimhood remains.
Lurking beneath the pain and the suffering of the racial hatred of the past was a corollary, or, if you will, a synonym: victimhood. It was true. It was real. It hurt. It was terrible.
But when the hurt of the hatred went away, as it mostly has, as an objective historical comparison of the US now with the US during the Civil Rights movement will reveal, the sense of victimhood has come to feel good.
Everyone wants to get into the act; either that, or the race identity promoters want to get you into the act.
A radical reversal.
The goal during the Civil Rights movement was to get rid of victimhood by getting rid of its causes. Now we have gotten rid of most of the causes but want to retain victimhood anyway.
Thats why I have to be, even on something so racially irrelevant as a medical history form, an American Indian, or Alaskan native, or Asian, etc. etc.
I highly doubt this question about race was devised by the doctor. I suspect it was imported, word for word, from some government form.
Why? Of what relevance is this racial multiple choice?
Are we not all human beings?
Are we not all created in the image of G-d?
Does the Torah regard race as either a damning or a positive trait?
Does race identity bring us together, or split us apart?
Has medical research discovered differential treatments for diseases for each of the nine separate racial categories on this medical form?
Gratuitous racial profiling is qualitatively different from an inquiry based on evidence-based medical risk. For example, it is valid to ask a female whether she is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, due to the proven, disproportionate presence of a cancer-causing mutation in this population.
Non-evidence based, wholesale racial profiling is something else entirely. Thats whats happening in todays America. I mean, what is it but a racist fishing expedition when Other (as in Other Pacific Islander) is supposed to be a distinct race?
In todays America, just to get a physical, I have to ask myself, what am I? Black/African American, Hawaiian Native, Other Pacific Islander, not Hispanic/Latino, white?
Its ridiculous.
I prefer not to participate in this slice and dice, divide and fragment, religiously groundless, politically harmful game.
I prefer to identity myself as I Prefer Not To Report.
Under G-d, it doesn’t matter what my race is.
Under country, we should strive to be like we are under G-d.
Hillel Goldberg may be reached at hillel@ijn.com.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
