US May Include Slave Descendant Query in Census

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Facts

• The US Census Bureau is reportedly considering whether to ask Black Americans if they are descendants of slaves, as opposed to immigrants, as an update to race and ethnicity questions already asked by the survey.¹
• The idea of expanding racial categories comes as some believe society too often conflates the experiences of descendants of slaves with those of Black immigrants, as well as amid a growing push to quantify who would be eligible to receive potential government reparations.²
• The Biden admin. has proposed combining questions about race and ethnicity in order to create distinct categories for people of North African or Middle Eastern origin. The potential new categories include 'American Descendants of Slavery,' 'American Freedmen,' and 'Foundational Black Americans.'³
• The effort to combine race and ethnicity categories also includes scrapping the current question of whether someone is Hispanic or Latino. The Census currently asks for one's race before asking whether one is Hispanic or Latino.¹
• Certain cities are already proposing reparation programs for Black Americans, citing historical and current wealth gaps between races. Duke University researchers found that slave descendants tend to lag behind immigrants in wealth and education.²
• A California task force is calling for $360k payments for its roughly 1.8M Black residents who have at least one slave ancestor, and San Francisco, Calif. has proposed $5M payments, the elimination of debt and tax burdens, annual incomes of at least $97K for the next 250 years, and homes in the city for $1 per family.¹

Sources: ¹Washington examiner, ²Wall Street Journal and ³The hill.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by Newsweek. As White Americans finally come to grips with the grievances of their Black neighbors, officials at every level of government are rightly considering ways to pay for the country's sinful past. While there is no agreed-upon solution, programs such as $300k cash payouts to student loan forgiveness and down payment grants are all possibilities. Though technically freed from slavery over a century ago, the free labor forced upon Blacks back then has never actually been paid back.
• Right narrative, as provided by Hotair.com. Behind their rhetorical tactics of helping the less fortunate and making up for America's sinful past, the Democrats and left-wing activists are actually trying to worsen race relations for political gain. Nothing good can come from telling White people — whose ancestors, let alone themselves, never owned slaves — that they have to pay Black Americans who were never slaves exorbitant amounts of money in reparations. The argument for reparations is as incoherent as it is unethical, and those being gaslighted are waking up to this fact slowly but surely.