The way the U.S. Census categorizes by race is wrong, according to a Columbia University professor who says it’s time to radically change the way Americans think about race classification.
Kenneth Prewitt, who served as director of the U.S. Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001, has recently written a book on the subject called, “What is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans.”
Prewitt said that the current system isn't as nuanced as it needs to be.
“We need to have a more refined understand of particular population groups,” says Prewitt. “The five big groups just don’t give us the detail we need.”
Those five groups are white, African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islanders. Prewitt said paring the country down to these five groups doesn’t provide an accurate representation of the country, and it’s time for the U.S. Census to change.
While Prewitt said he's eager for that change, he said it has to be introduced incrementally in order to stick. To begin, he’d like to see a gradual shift away from the question of race in favor of national origin.
“My strategy … is we continue to ask a race question, but simultaneously ask a much more detailed national origin question,” he said. “And then look at the interaction between those two data sets to get a bigger picture, better picture of society.”
Prewitt said he hopes that in another generation or two, the U.S. Census will go entirely to a national origin question.
