https://www.gov.ca.gov/docs/AB_176_Veto_Message.pdf
This news story is more relevant to the first part of our class, but I still thought it was a really interesting practical application of some of the ideas we've discussed.
A few of my Facebook friends in California posted about this decision by California governor Jerry Brown to veto a bill that would have required several state agencies to add demographic subcategories for people identifying as Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The rationale he gave was that he was "wary of the ever growing desire to stratify. Dividing people into ethnic or other subcategories may yield more information, but not necessarily greater wisdom about what actions should follow. To focus just on ethnic identity may not be enough." This is similar to what we've said in class about the questionable utility of racial identification and how such identification further reifies the existence/biological basis of race. At the same time, many of my Facebook friends posting about this story disagreed with the decision and thought it was a suppression and undermining of Asian identity. I thought it was really interesting how this topic of race was understood so differently in academic versus sociopolitical contexts.
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