The situation with my position in whiteness becomes more complicated when I consider the census.
I still believe that whiteness is a political fiction designed for social dominance. An unhealthy social obsession that damages my country’s politics. “Other” seems like my only viable option. If anyone asks I give them my reasons.
But once again my actions do not exist in a vacuum. I have to plan for social responses. My general position still gets reactions and I’m still seeing people, white people* in all likelihood, choosing to obsess over blackness. One acted like the slave origin of blackness made me a hypocrite, which is pretending blackness and whiteness are equivalent and history lets me kill that. I will watch what white people do with whiteness and pay attention to how they act towards blackness.
What could a social reaction to white people associating with “other” on the census be?
*no more scare quotes because a political group naming themselves white people need none.
I don’t think I have anything useful to contribute to your question, but I was surprised that the race question required you to provide the “origin” of your whiteness (like German, e.g.) if you checked that box. I don’t recall that ever being asked before, and you had to write in something or you couldn’t proceed. I guess I should’ve put American to see if they’d accept that.
I also noticed that the only option for gender was male or female. :/ At least they didn’t ask if I was here “legally.”
I didn’t mean to give the impression that there was a question that asked me to provide the “origin” of my whiteness. I’ll look and see if I can figure out how I gave that impression.
I haven’t looked at the questions yet and I’m considering what I am going to do with the white category in general. I guess I could be disappointed by a lack of “other” category but it seems a safe assumption.
As a test I put in the state I live it and it was accepted. So I guess that is “white” enough.
What is “white” enough?