[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 98 (Friday, July 11, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1407-E1408]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           CATEGORIC DENIALS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NEWT GINGRICH

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 11, 1997

  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit into the 
Congressional Record the following article, ``Categoric Denials,'' 
which appeared in the June 14, 1997 edition of Atlanta's Topside Loaf. 
This article describes the efforts of Project RACE, a national 
organization which advocates adding a multiracial category to legal 
forms at the State and Federal levels, including the 2000 U.S. census. 
Project RACE [Reclassify All Children Equally] has a web page which can 
be accessed at www.projectrace.mindspring.com.
 Project RACE was founded by a constituent of mine from Roswell, GA, 
named Susan Graham. Susan is white and her husband is African-American. 
Their son Ryan has grown weary and frustrated from having to constantly 
choose between labeling himself as either ``white'' or ``black'' on 
legal and educational forms. ``I feel very sad, because I can't choose. 
I am Both,'' Ryan recently testified before Congress.
  Representative Thomas Petri has introduced a bill, H.R. 830, which 
would establish the legal right for individuals such as Ryan to 
accurately describe himself as ``multiracial'' on such forms. Ryan was 
officially labeled ``black'' on school forms and ``white'' on the 1990 
U.S. census.
  It is time to stop forcing Americans like Ryan to choose between 
different heritages. In addition to increasing accuracy, recognizing 
the multiethnic race would also likely lead to health benefits for 
these individuals, who are routinely excluded as samples in 
pharmaceutical tests.
  I was very disappointed by the recent recommendation by a Federal 
task force to not add such a designation to the 2000 census form. In a 
technicolor world, the Clinton administration can only see in black and 
white. Like Tiger Woods, millions of Americans of mixed ancestry have 
moved beyond the Census Bureau's divisive and inaccurate racial labels. 
In the absence of Presidential leadership, it may be necessary to 
advance Congressman Petri's legislation to overturn this misguided 
decision and take a major step toward a country in which the only box 
to check reads, ``American.''

                 [From the Topside Loaf, June 14, 1997]

                           Categoric Denials

                         (By Anthony Heffernan)

       At the tender age of 12, Ryan Graham of Roswell knows 
     exactly who he is and who he is not. He isn't black, he will 
     tell tell you, nor is he white. He's both, he says. His dad 
     is black and his mom is white. The problem is that Ryan, like 
     many of the other 2 million or more multiracial children in 
     America, is often pigeonholed as one race or the other--and 
     sometimes forced to choose between the two.
       It's a very old battle that has received new attention 
     since 21-year-old Tiger Woods ascended into the hallowed 
     halls of sports superstardom after winning the Masters 
     Tournament in April. Woods was widely heralded as the first 
     African-American to win the tournament. But the young golfer 
     has refused to be labeled as black. Woods points out that he 
     is in fact one-eighth American Indian, one-eighth Caucasian, 
     one-quarter African-American, one-quarter Thai and one-
     quarter Chinese.
       As a child struggling to define his race, Woods coined the 
     term ``Cabinasian;'' Ryan simply prefers to be called 
     ``multiracial.'' Now, for the second time in his young life 
     Ryan is asking the federal government to grant him that 
     right.
       Ryan and his mother, Susan Graham, President of the 
     Roswell-based Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally), 
     testified last month before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 
     Washington, D.C. The Grahams and others argue for a new 
     multiracial category on all federal forms, including the 2000 
     U.S. Census. The 1990 Census afforded only five race 
     classifications: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian or 
     Pacific Islander, black, white, or ``other.'' (Hispanics were 
     tallied under a separate ``ethnic'' category.)
       Ryan told Congress that, when forms require him to choose 
     between black or white, ``I feel very sad, because I can't 
     choose. I am both . . . Some forms include the term `other,` 
     but that makes me feel like a freak or a space alien. I want 
     a classification that describes exactly what I am.''
       Ryan and his mother first traveled to Washington to make 
     the request four years ago, only to see the issue buried in 
     bureaucratic hearings. But the Office of Management and 
     Budget is finally expected to issue

[[Page E1408]]

     a ruling on the issue this summer, bringing some kind of 
     resolution to the battle Graham has fought for the past seven 
     years.
       It began when Ryan entered kindergarten. Graham vividly 
     recalls the day she received a form from Ryan's north Fulton 
     school, asking her to designate his race. When she noticed 
     there was no multiracial category, she called the school to 
     voice her concerns. Assured that she didn't have to complete 
     the form, she sent it back blank. Later, she discovered 
     Ryan's teacher had been told to fill out the form herself. 
     The teacher had labeled him black.
       At the same time, Graham was struggling to fill out her 
     1990 Census form. Again, she saw no ``multiracial'' category 
     for her son and 2-year-old daughter. She called the U.S. 
     Census Bureau and was advised that the children should take 
     the race of their mother ``because in cases like these,'' she 
     was told, ``we always know the race of the mother and not the 
     father.''
       Graham bristles at the memory. ``[They meant] that they 
     always know who the mother is, and not the father. That was 
     very insulting coming from our United States government.''
       The ruling also meant more confusion for her son, who was 
     now labeled white on the census and black at school. ``I 
     realized that there was something very, very wrong with this 
     picture,'' explains Graham, a writer whose articles about 
     multiracial issues have appeared in the New York Daily News, 
     the Chicago Tribune, and two anthologies about multiracial 
     America.
       From Graham's frustration was born Project RACE, a national 
     organization which has successfully lobbied to have a 
     multiracial category added to legal forms in seven states, 
     including Georgia. If the category is added to federal forms, 
     she recommends the following format: Under the ``Race`` 
     category, people would be instructed to choose from five 
     categories, including American Indian (or Alaska Native), 
     Asian (or Pacific Islander), Black (or African American), 
     Hispanic or White. Those who consider themselves multiracial 
     would ``check as many as apply.'' The form could be adapted 
     to list Hispanics separately under ``ethnicity,'' as on the 
     last census.
       Even if the Office of Management and Budget votes down the 
     multiracial category; Graham says, supporters have drawn up a 
     bill, H.R. 830, that would accomplish the same thing. But 
     legislation, she notes, takes a long time. ``We would rather 
     the Clinton administration do the right thing and add the 
     category,'' she explains.
       But the multiracial movement has drawn the ire of some 
     blacks and Hispanics, who argue that creating a multiracial 
     category might decrease minority numbers, thus exposing them 
     to greater discrimination and reducing their claim to 
     government programs.
       ``If the issue was solely identity, then you would have a 
     line, and everyone would write in whoever they are,'' says 
     Eric Rodriguez, policy analyst for the National Council of La 
     Raza, a Latino group based in Washington, D.C. ``But the 
     usefulness of collecting data in that manner is dubious. The 
     broader [the categories] get, the more inaccurate your data 
     gets. And these are the very tools that we use to fight 
     discrimination and to work through anti-poverty programs.''
       Dr. Joseph Lowery, outgoing president of the Southern 
     Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), also criticizes the 
     multiracial category in a written statement. He terms the 
     category ``too vague,'' noting ``it could refer to a 
     Norwegian/Aleutian.''
       Lowery likes the proposed multiracial category to the 
     ``coloured'' category adopted by South Africans to describe 
     their citizens of mixed races. Those labeled ``coloured'' 
     were given broader rights than those deemed to be black--
     ``which shoved blacks down another notch on the equity 
     pole,'' Lowery says.
       Graham scoffs at Lowery's apartheid comparison. Multiracial 
     Americans, she says, would receive no special rights. People 
     of multiple races have just as great a need to track 
     discrimination in the work place and in schools as other 
     minorities, Graham says.
       But one of the most convincing arguments for tracking the 
     multiracial population is the need to garner additional 
     medical information on multiracial Americans.
       Ramona Douglass, president of the Association of Multi-
     Ethnic Americans (AMEA), knows all too well what medical 
     dangers the multiracial community faces. Douglass, part 
     Italian American, part American Indian an part African 
     American, was once almost given the wrong anesthesia before 
     major surgery because doctors had incorrectly assumed that 
     she suffered from sickle-cell anemia, a disease common among 
     African Americans. As a result, Douglas was forced to call 
     off the surgery.
       Other medical issues revolve around a shortage of suitable 
     bonemarrow donors for people of multiracial descent. And, 
     according to Douglass, drug dosages can be affected by racial 
     or ethnic combinations. Still, pharmaceutical companies 
     typically do not include multiracial Americans in their 
     tests.
       ``It's not just a feel-good issue,'' Douglass says of the 
     drive to add a multiracial category. ``There are, in fact, 
     public health and medical concerns involved.''
       Julie Bolen, a Cobb County resident and co-chair of the 
     Interracial Family Alliance in Atlanta, believes adding a 
     multiracial category is also an important step in 
     acknowledging the legitimacy of this fast-growing segment of 
     the population. ``It's not like it's some oddity that happens 
     so infrequently that nobody knows what to call it,'' explains 
     Bolen, who has two multiracial children, ages 16 and 20.
       Bolen, from Oklahoma, recalls teachers trying to force her 
     children to choose black or white ``because of subsidized 
     lunch programs and things like that. My son would refuse to, 
     and he even walked out of class over it,'' she recalls. 
     ``Hopefully, that doesn't happen anymore. To even make such a 
     big deal about it is, I think, real hurtful to kids.''
       Graham and Project RACE have made as sure as they can that 
     it doesn't happen anymore--at least not in those seven states 
     that now recognize the multiracial category. Not in Fulton 
     county, either, where 835 children were able to call 
     themselves multiracial on school forms last year. And not to 
     Graham's own children--not anymore. And victories such as 
     those, Graham says, are what makes it all worthwhile.

     

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