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I agree with the president that this phrasing was clumsy, because it could be misinterpreted to mean that Harry Reid thinks it's still OK to call black people Negroes.
CALLING someone a Negro in 2010 would have a very different ring to it than referring to Negro dialect when you're discussing the prejudice of some white voters.
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I guess the Census Bureau thought it was OK too.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/6814629.html
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Even though “Negro” was on previous census forms, and despite the approval of its use this year by the bureau's African American Advisory Committee, demands are flying to ditch the forms and print new ones.
With questionnaires scheduled to be sent out March 1, that is not likely to happen. But the bureau has agreed to send out about 30,000 questionnaires without the word to test the response.
“Negro” has remained on the form because the population counters kept getting forms back with the word written in — more than 55,000 in the 2000 Census — even though it was included as one of the selections. That suggested that some blacks still preferred the term and had not noticed it as a third choice.
The point was to be as inclusive as possible, to make sure the racial demographics were as accurate as could be, the bureau says.
“The Census Bureau included the term ‘Negro' because testing prior to Census 2000 indicated that numbers of respondents self-identified with this term,” the U.S. Census Bureau said in a news release.
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What a strange world we live in. It would be nice if people could just agree to what is offensive and what's not, and then help us all keep up with the changes.
