I think Ian is being too kind to Jeb in accepting the “my mistake”/”paperwork error” excuse for his lie on an official government document (though it’s always a good time to remind people of Senator Fauxcahontas’s antics). If he’d checked “Asian,” I could believe it was an error, but this was no error; it’s just another manifestation (maybe even subconscious) of his rejection of his own background and embrace of a different one. It’s his way of subscribing to the tribalism that Jay notes today has replaced color-blindness and assimilationism (on the post-American right as well as on the left).
But rather than pick on Señor Arbusto (sorry!), it’s more productive to use the incident as a teachable moment (ugh!). Jeb’s fakery suggests why we should abolish government racial and ethnic categories, building a wall of separation, as it were, between race and state, as we do between church and state. No one would think of asking your religion on a voter-registration form or job application — in fact, it’s illegal. So should it be for other attributes that are irrelevant to the content of your character — hair color, say, or handedness or what country your grandparents came from.
The concrete target should be the 2020 census — Congress has a narrow window to influence the outline of the census form before it is too late, as a practical matter, to change it. The 2010 census form had the usual ridiculous race/ethnic questions, and I tried to encourage people to check “other” and write in “American” (see here, here, here, and here). The Bureau’s site does not seem to report the number who responded “American” on the actual 2010 census form, but the most recent survey results (from the Bureau’s American Community Survey) show about 22 million people claiming “American” as their ancestry. (The Census Bureau’s “ancestry” data is an illogical hodgepodge, covering only whites and non-old-stock blacks – i.e., those with recent roots in Africa or the Caribbean – with the many and various Asian and Latin ancestries listed under other rubrics.)
Obama will never sign legislation ending the race laws that are so vital to the leftist goal of deconstructing American national identity, but a Republican Congress can at least pass it. This would put the GOP on record as promoting an inclusive common identity for all Americans, while leaving people free to engage in whatever private expressions of ethnic pride (if any) they choose — just as we do with religion.