*The U.S. Census Bureau is reportedly considering asking Black respondents if they descended from slaves in America or from descendants of immigrants who were not enslaved.
The Wall Street Journal reports that changing the terms used to describe Black people in the national Census could impact social programs, representation, and reparations.
“It’s not an issue of being for or against descendant communities because the majority of us in this conversation are descendants,” explained Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor, founder of the National Black Cultural Information (NBCI) Trust, TAG24 reports. “All of us have our own perspectives on these different names, so then to try to push this into federal definition of over 40 million people when these types of descriptions and names really have to have – and this is according to the OMB – broad acceptance… those terms are not broadly accepted.”
There is currently a proposal being considered by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to include a designation called “Descendants of Slavery” as part of the ethnicity subcategory of “Black or African American”.
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Census respondents already have the option of identifying themselves as “American Descendants of Slavery,” “American Freedman,” or “Foundational Black American,” according to the report.
“What we don’t want is a situation where we’re removing and replacing names that are broadly accepted, we’re confusing members of our community, we’re splintering off members of our community, we’re getting an undercount, and we’re losing potentially trillions of dollars in funding and resources. I’m talking about health care, education, and also political representation,” Aiwuyor noted.
Last year, Aiwuyor was appointed commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission. Since then, she has caught heavy criticism online for allegedly expressing ideological views that are opposite of the legacy of American descendants of slaves. She also has a history of denigrating Foundational Black Americans, according to her critics.
Meanwhile, in the US, the Census is conducted every 10 years, and the results are used to allocate resources to public services such as hospitals, schools, road repairs, and housing assistance programs.
