Eureka! -- Race Obsession Is Harmful

You know, I'm not sure whether to facepalm and yell, "Well, DUH!" or be happy that a light bulb has gone off finally for at least one person.

Here it is:

Should public policy be colour-blind? Or must governments and public institutions take account of people’s ethnicity and culture in formulating policy? It is a debate that has been reignited by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempt to introduce ethnic monitoring in France.

Unlike in Britain, where public institutions routinely collect information about people’s ethnic origins, it is illegal in France to classify people in this fashion. The foundation stone of the secular French republic is that all citizens should be equal and free from distinctions of race or religion. But senior politicians have begun to recognise that France remains deeply disfigured by racism. To combat this, Sarkozy argues, it is necessary to collect ethnically based data. The British experience suggests that such policies often do more harm than good.

Two assumptions underlie the argument for ethnic monitoring: first, that ethnicity and culture are the most important labels we can place on people; and second, that there is a causal relationship between membership of such a group and disproportional outcomes between groups.

Both those assumptions, of course, are DEEPLY and perhaps IRREMEDIABLY FLAWED.

Why not just listen to the excellent Mr. Morgan Freeman?

Oh, and my campus is doing one of its self-analyses for ethnic/racial population numbers. Some diversity/multiculturalist-y office sent me a survey asking me to identify myself by my race/ethnicity. I simply refused to answer. So I got a second one. I ignored that too. And I'm going to keep on ignoring it.