Census Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Black with a capital B?

Between 1850 and 1920, the United States census classified those of African descent as black, negro, mulatto, quadroon or octoroon — depending on the visual assessment of the census taker.

Abraham Joshua Heschel walks with Martin Luther King Jr. on civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Courtesy of the American Jewish Archives

Arthur the AmeriNZ sent me an article about the new Speaker of the Nevada state assembly, Ira Hansen, and notes: “This guy obviously endorses the current Republican meme about how the relationship of blacks and the Democratic Party is akin to that of master and slave. I’d love to see your take on that, um, interesting propaganda point.”

Specifically: “[Hansen] wrote that African-Americans are insufficiently grateful for being given their freedom: ‘The lack of gratitude and the deliberate ignoring of white history in relation to eliminating slavery is a disgrace that Negro leaders should own up to.'”

And from this story: “The relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple-minded darkies.”

Lessee, what do I think? (Roger works mightily to rein in his sarcasm…)

1. I do recall the national Republican Party in the past few years giving at least lip service to the idea that the party needs to be more inclusive. To that end, Hansen is a big FAIL.

2. We’ve been “celebrating” the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War for over three years in this country, and the (very imperfect) narrative that Lincoln freed the slaves, the war was fought to free the slaves, has been front and center. What the heck is he talking about?

2a. Virtually all progress toward freedoms for black people in the United States has involved white people, from the slave owner who freed their “property” upon death to the abolitionists of the 19th century, to the activists before World War II, to the Freedom Riders in the 1960s, some of whom died for the cause. Truman desegregating the armed forces. Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights and Voting Acts, which have been undercut in recent years. Hansen’s argument is a fiction, of course.

3. I could buy the idea that the Republican party stood for “freedom” if so many of their votes and policies haven’t been to disempower the poor and middle class and restrict choices (except when it comes to guns).

4. Goodness knows that the Democratic party in the United States is corporatist and that President Obama is likewise. But maybe a smidgen less than the Republicans, which is why blacks still tend to vote Democratic.

But I really zeroed in on Hansen’s use of the word Negro, which apparently he often fails to capitalize. I happened upon this recent New York Times article about the racial designation.

Between 1850 and 1920, the United States census classified those of African descent as black, negro, mulatto, quadroon or octoroon — depending on the visual assessment of the census taker. By 1930, the Census Bureau offered just one of these categories: negro…

(I LOVE that 1890 census. Seriously.)

In the mid-1920s, W. E. B. Du Bois began a letter-writing campaign, demanding that book publishers, newspaper editors and magazines capitalize the N in Negro when referring to Black people.

While initially resistant, many mainstream publications accepted the request, “including The Atlantic Monthly and, eventually, The New York Times.”

The article is pushing for the B in Black to be capitalized, as it is a designation of the race. I know this argument rather well, having written a paper for a college sociology class in New Paltz c. 1974; the paper was “corrected” for not capitalizing black, er, Black. This is one of those issues where I just don’t much care one way or another. I get the point, I suppose, but with substantial issues of racism that still exist, it just doesn’t resonate much with me.

An older article describes whether black should be used as a noun or adjective. Given my long-stated disdain for “African-American” as narrow and inaccurate, I’m not much bothered by the noun use.

The idea of race

I never embraced the term ‘African-American’; it’s SEVEN syllables, versus one for ‘black’.

Leonard Pitts wrote a tremendous article, Dumbest idea in history? Race. You should read the whole piece.

Among other things, He explains that race became “that which would allow one person in rags to feel superior to another person in rags.” In the United States, “Whiteness was something that had to be learned and earned, particularly for those — Jews, Poles, southern Italians, Hungarians, the Irish — who were regarded as congenitally inferior. They were seen as white, says [Nell Irwin] Painter, but it was a sort of defective whiteness. They were ‘off white’ for want of a better term, and as such, a threat to American values and traditions. And they were mistreated accordingly until, over the passage of generations of assimilation, they achieved full whiteness.”

“As whiteness was invented, so was blackness. When Africans were gathered on the shores of that continent to be packed into the reeking holds of slave ships for the voyage to this country, they saw themselves as Taureg, Mandinkan, Fulani, Mende, or Songhay — not black. As Noel Ignatiev, author of How The Irish Became White, has observed, those Africans did not become slaves because they were black. They ‘became’ black because they were enslaved.”

This remained true, to an obsessive degree, even after slavery ended in the United States. Check out the detailed recording of black people in the 1890 Census: “Be particularly careful to distinguish between blacks, mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons. The word ‘black’ should be used to describe those persons who have three-fourths or more black blood; ‘mulatto,’ those persons who have from three-eighths to five-eighths black blood; ‘quadroon,’ those persons who have one-fourth black blood; and ‘octoroon,’ those persons who have one-eighth or any trace of black blood.”

Incidentally, the Census Bureau is considering getting rid of the term ‘Negro’, leaving the terms ‘black’ and ‘African-American’.

If ‘black’ is an imprecise term, then ‘African-American’ is even more so, as Pitts explains: As the example of Charlize Theron, the fair-skinned, blond actress from South Africa, amply illustrates, it is entirely possible to come from [Africa], yet not be what we think of as ‘black.’ Indeed, Theron, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008, is by definition an African American. Yet, she fits no one’s conception of that term, either.”

I never embraced the term ‘African-American’; it’s SEVEN syllables, versus one for ‘black’. As long as the distinctions are made, I prefer the term ‘black’; after all, as Ken Levine noted, the James Brown anthem would sound very different if it were, “Say It Loud! I’m African-American and I’m Proud.”
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Pitts also wrote about How Black Is Black Enough?

A great story by Bob Costas about the late baseball player Stan Musial on an extended section from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 28, 2012.

N is for National Elections: November 6

As a New Yorker, I don’t see many of the ads that run in states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

If you’re not from the United States, you may not be aware of the fact that the US is having its national election on Tuesday, November 6.

CONGRESS

Approximately 1/3 of the US Senate is up for election. Senators are elected on a statewide basis for six-year terms.

All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for election. The number of districts in each state is dependent on its population. The breakdown changes every 10 years, after the decennial Census. The results of the 2010 Census will alter the makeup of the House for the 2012 election.

From the Census Bureau:
“Among the eight states gaining seats, Texas will gain four seats and Florida will gain two seats. The other six states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington) will each gain one seat. Of the ten states losing seats, two states, New York and Ohio will each lose two seats. The other eight states (Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) will each lose one seat.”

Even the states that have the same number of seats will have to change its Congressional boundaries (except for the states with only one House member, of course), to reflect population shifts within the state, based on the doctrine of One person, one vote.

THE PRESIDENCY

The Democratic Party is fielding the incumbent, President Barack Obama of Illinois, with his running mate, Vice-President Joe Biden of Delaware. The Republican Party candidate is putting up former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney, with his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Since about the year 1800, the President and VP have run as a ticket. There are a number of “third party” candidates who have approximately a zero percent chance of winning the election.

The nomination process is rather peculiar for both major parties. Some states have what are called caucuses, while other states have primaries. But even the rules of primaries vary from state to state, with some having “closed” primaries (only members of that party can vote) while others have more “open” primaries, (voters who are not enrolled in either party may vote, and in a few states, voters from the OPPOSING party may participate!)

The Presidential election is not decided by the popular vote nationally, but rather by the vote in each state, which gets representatives to something called the Electoral College. Each state gets electors equal to its number of members of Congress (House plus Senate); the District of Columbia also gets three electors.

In 49 of 51 geographies, except for Maine and Nebraska, there are winner-take-all contests. Thus, some states are not generally contested by the candidates. New York, it is surmised, will go to Obama; Texas is safe for Romney. Therefore, the race is generally run in the so-called battleground states.

As a New Yorker, I don’t see many of the Presidential campaign ads that run in states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. A good political map can be seen at Real Clear Politics.
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Re: “the dozens of political tell-alls…that appear each election cycle.” The Center of Gravitas Best and Worst Seller List helps “you navigate which books would be likely to fly off the shelves and which would be reduced to the bargain bin.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

The Unresolved Father Lineage Stuff

What I REALLY want to know is who was my father’s biological father.

The item I wanted to check the most is where my father lived, and just as important, how he is listed. This is the listing for my paternal grandmother’s household in the 1930 Census:

Samuel E Walker, 56, janitor in a public building (my great grandfather, who I remember from my childhood)
Eugene M Walker, 52 [Mary Eugean Patterson Walker, from other sources] – deceased by the time I was born
Agatha H Walker, 27, housekeeper, private family (my grandmother, who died in the mid 1960s)
Earl S Walker, 25, caterer, hotels
Stanley E Walker, 20
Vera C Walker, 17
Melissa C Walker, 15
Jessie G Walker, 13
Morris S Walker, 11
Wesley H Walker, 3 [3 6/12]

Samuel is listed as head of household, Eugene as his wife. Everyone else is listed as his sons or daughters. The oddity is the Wesley Walker record. From the time frame, that is clearly my father, Agatha’s son, but I knew him as Leslie H Green. This begs the obvious questions.

I’m looking to see when the guy I knew as my grandfather, McKinley Green, entered the picture. From the 1938 Binghamton city directory, I can tell my grandmother’s last name was Green, but she appeared to be living at 339 Court Street, whereas McKinley was at 135 Susquehanna Street. The 1940 Census continues to show the Walker clan together, but my grandmother as Agatha Greene (enumerator error) and my father as Leslie Greene. McKinley lived in a boarding house.

What I REALLY want to know is who was my father’s biological father. Rumor had it that my grandmother got pregnant by some minister. Of course, I never asked my father about this. Whatever info I got was from my mother, who got the info secondhand, and from his cousins, all of whom were younger than my father, and thus not present either.

My sisters have mused that, in retrospect, we should have brought this up to my father, but that wasn’t going to happen. NONE of the info I know, or think I know, originated from him, so it would have been mighty difficult to casually slide it into the conversation.

In the picture is my father (center) with his mother, Agatha (right). I have no idea who the others are, though the boy sure looks like a Walker.

Yes, there was a real Vidal Sassoon

The elimination of the ACS would mean the loss of all the data Census used to collect on the long form. A voluntary ACS would actually cost MORE to operate than it does presently.

I was on Facebook recently, and someone, who I believe considers herself a bit of a fashionista, wrote: “Did you have ANY idea Vidal Sassoon was a real person? I did not.” She must be even younger than I thought because that means she never saw this commercial and others like it. This made me feel rather old but also puzzled. I found this list of companies named after people, and Sassoon was not on it; maybe it seemed too obvious.

At a conference last week, I was talking to some folks about movies. I mentioned how cinematic offerings so often come from another source, such as The Avengers (a couple of no-spoiler reviews here and here, BTW) I said I didn’t know why they bothered to slap the name Dark Shadows on it, since it has such a different feel than the TV show. Both of them expressed shock. I said, “Look it up!” at which point one pulled out his smartphone. “Go to IMBD.com,” I directed. He exclaimed, “Dark Shadows 1966-1971, 30-minute gothic soap opera. I didn’t know they had goth back then!” I just walked away. They must have missed Jonathan Frid’s obit; he originated the character Barnabas Collins in 1967 that Johnny Depp will play in the film.

All the obits for Maurice Sendak mentioned first Where The Wild Things Are; I don’t think I’ve ever read it! Yet I immediately recognize the artwork. I DID watch Really Rosie and saw some of his other work, such as in The New Yorker.

A guy who’s my sister’s friend, and my Facebook friend and real-life acquaintance, lives in the San Diego area. He wrote of Junior Seau, the San Diego Chargers linebacker who committed suicide: “There’s an outpouring of sadness in this city. He was much more than an athlete: his charitable contributions were well-respected. We won’t know what demons were in his life; we’d rather remember the goodness that he radiated, at least in public.” What Jaquandor said, I would echo.
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From the Association of Public Data Users:
“The U.S. House of Representatives voted on May 9th to eliminate the American Community Survey. This amendment to the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill passed by a vote of 232 to 190. Right before this vote, the House passed the Webster amendment, approved by voice vote and sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), to make a response to the ACS voluntary by prohibiting both the Census Bureau and the Justice Department from using funds to enforce penalties in the Census Act that make survey response mandatory. (The amendment had to be written as a limit on the expenditure of funds in order for it to be ruled “in order” on an appropriations bill.) The outcome of this vote demonstrates the importance of proactivity among data users in conveying their support for the ACS and other surveys to all members of the House and Senate. The Senate is expected to take up the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill next week.”

The elimination of the ACS, for those who don’t deal with Census data, would mean the loss of all the data Census used to collect on the long-form, discontinued after Census 2000 to make way for the ACS, at Congress’ urging! The ACS has provided data more regularly. A voluntary ACS, because it would involve contacting more households, would actually cost MORE to operate than it does presently, and because of participant bias – i.e., people who like to fill out surveys – would lose its statistical validity. Governments, businesses, and individuals use these data daily, I know from experience.
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Evanier notes that on a recent trip how much of it was made possible by technology that didn’t exist a decade or two ago.