Multiracial boom in 2020 census was mostly an illusion, researchers say

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 12:06 AM EST, January 14, 2025


When the 2020 census results were released, they showed a boom in the number of people classified as multiracial in the United States since 2010. Two Princeton sociologists now say that jump was mostly an illusion.

The 276% increase largely happened because of a change in how people were classified by the U.S. Census Bureau rather than strong shifts in racial or ethnic identity or major growth, according to a paper published last month by Paul Starr and Christina Pao. The Census Bureau for the first time provided space on the census form for people to write-in their families’ origins, which guided how the statistical agency categorized them.

People who were classified as being two or more races rose from 2.9% to 10.2% of the U.S. population from 2010 to 2020, and the increase was most noticeable among Hispanic people. The share of the white alone population dropped from 72.4% to 61.6%, provoking handwringing among some conservative commentators about what they called a loss of white power.

The Princeton researchers argued that anyone who marked themselves as Black or as white on the 2020 census form but then wrote that they were of Latin American origin was reclassified by a computerized algorithm as multiracial even though they had marked themselves as a single race. The same multiracial reclassification appeared to have been made for people who self-identified as white only but then wrote that their origins were from an African country, according to the researchers.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/2020-census-bureau-race-ethnicity-91376f5a672b698e4875fbee952aac46

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Link to PUBLICATION (PDF) - https://sociologicalscience.com/download/vol_11/december/SocSci_v11_1107to1123.pdf

[mathematic]

1. Egregious. Musk & Charlize Theron marked as multiracial and other absurdities.

I highly recommend the pdf. It's clear and convincing.

we argue that the reclassifications have been misconceived:
first, because they have confounded identity with ancestry, and, second, because
they have mistakenly equated national origin with race. Identity and origins are
not the same; people may write in an “origin,” perhaps a distant ancestry, even a
minute one according to a DNA test, which is not part of their identity (Roth and
Ivemark 2018; Waters 1990). “Origins” may be understood as ancestry in national
as well as racial or ethnic terms, but a national origin does not necessarily indicate a
race. Not everyone with origins in South Africa is black; not everyone with origins
in France is white. Multiple origins do not necessarily multiply racial identities
or indicate that people think of themselves, much less are regarded by others, as
mixed race.

The census marked all of the following people multi racial:
-People that self-identified as white alone that are from Argentina (a country whiter than the US) or any other latin american country.
-People that self-identified as white alone that wrote they had native american ancestry, which can include the oh-so-common apocryphal family stories
-People that self-identified as white alone that list certain African nations, like South Africa, under origins.

These classification errors are so obvious that I can't even conceive of a explanation for how the new procedure got approved.

[Irish_Dem]

2. It was intentional. Why?

[ancianita]

4. Wilbur Ross.

Racist Palm Beach neighbor to the racist felon...

If he couldn't get the citizenship question into the census, he'd use an algorithm to implicate those deemed "multi-racial." When the Constitution says the US census will count "all persons." Race/citizenship should never even be in any census count.

...Ross sought to amend the decennial Census to add the controversial question: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"[80]

New York solicitor general Barbara Underwood led a lawsuit filed by 18 states and many cities to attempt to stop the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.[81][82] The Department of Justice supported the Department of Commerce.

U.S. federal judge Jesse M. Furman ruled against the Department of Justice and Wilbur Ross, stating that if the trial is delayed the appeals process may not be done by summer 2019, the printing deadline of the census.[82] Furman blocked the census question proposal on January 15, 2019, saying Ross had violated a "veritable smorgasbord" of federal rules, asserting Ross and his aides made false or misleading statements under oath[83] and that he sought to add the question to the Census based on a pretext.[84]
The House of Representatives held Ross in contempt of Congress and accused Ross of lying about the citizenship question's origins.[85] Specifically, Ross had testified under oath that the addition of the question was prompted by DOJ when in fact he had made the request via the Hofeller letter he had transmitted.
It became known in July 2021 that the Justice Department inspector general had determined Ross had misled Congress, but the Trump Justice Department declined to prosecute him.[86]

Contempt of Congress
Ross and the Trump administration refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, issued by the House Oversight Committee, for documents regarding efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.[87] After Trump asserted executive privilege over the subpoenaed documents, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Ross and Attorney General William Barr in criminal contempt of Congress, with the committee's chairman saying that Ross and Barr had "blatantly obstructed our ability to do congressional oversight."[85][84] In June 2019, the House held Barr and Ross in contempt of Congress on a mostly party-line 230–198 vote; this was only the second time in U.S. history that a sitting Cabinet member was held in contempt.[84][85] The vote signified an escalation of the House of Representatives' battles with the Trump White House over congressional oversight, but was largely symbolic as Trump's Justice Department did not act on the criminal citation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross

[Irish_Dem]

5. So many evil bastards.

[ancianita]

6. Truth.

They worship at the feet of Mammon.

[Irish_Dem]

7. And hatred.

[JT45242]

3. I call BS -- they are trying to go back to one drop of nonwhite blood makes you XX not multiracial

The number of mixed race marriages would indicate that the number of multiracial children has been under-reported for at least 30 years.

However, many people used to check the "I am not fully white box and consider myself XXX" than the more accurate two or more races.

It is just as simple as that. I had a lot of students in my 20 years of teaching who would have parents form different races but would not check "two or more races" box on anything. In majority black communities being half-white might be looked down upon. IN majority white communities, being half-white and half-black often meant that your family were race traitors.