ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ethical and policy issues surrounding racial and ethnic classification. It considers the reasons why data on race and ethnicity are collected in the first place, as well as the grounds for assessing the adequacy or appropriateness of a classification scheme. The chapter then examines the case for creating a multiracial category, sifting through the arguments on both sides of the public debate. Critics also fear that the mere inclusion of the multiracial category would symbolically denigrate "unmixed" and darker-skinned blacks. In the public debate, that status is in fact what proponents of the multiracial category have called for: they insist that being multiracial is itself a distinctive identity. While some objections to the multiracial category seem to us misplaced, the chapter concludes that the creation of such a category would have serious drawbacks. It argues finally that the "mark one or more" option avoids these drawbacks and is thus the superior option.
