In arguing against racial categorization, Deroy Murdock says that the government collecting information about our racial/ethnic identities, “should give Americans goose bumps” and that there is a “whiff of Nuremburg about all this.”  Later he alludes to the citizenship laws of Nazi Germany.

Why could it be considered dangerous for the government to collect this kind of information?  What are the potential misuses of categorical data?

Is the allusion to the ethnic categorizations of the Russia warranted?  What is similar or different about racial/ethnic histories of the US and Russia?

Murdock states:  National ID cards now let Russians be Russians.

What does this mean?

Should we issue national ID cards that let Americans be Americans?

Murdock states that racial interest groups opposed adding “multi-racial” as a category on the US Census because it would dilute their numbers and corresponding political clout.  In his opinion, this allows the “racial spoils system” to prevail.  What is this “racial spoils system” he is talking about?

Why, in the opinion of some, was the option of checking multiple boxes on the Census preferable to adding the multi-racial category?

Are multi-racials deprived of a group voice by their lack of category?  Are they a group?  What is the basis of their shared identity?
 

Alan Jenkins argues racial categorization should not be abandoned

What, to you, are the most persuasive arguments for keeping racial categories?

What kinds of discrimination have been discovered by the use of government collected information on race and ethnicity??

Is there any other way to generate this kind of data?

In the absence of such data, how would we detect, measure discrimination?
 
 
 

Which position, for or against racial categorization by government, seems more in keeping with American political traditions?  Which ones?

Specifically, which values or elements of the American civic creed are emphasized or violated by this practice?