The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued its guidelines on racial tabulation on March 10, 2000. People who check more than one racial category will be reallocated back into one race. Not a big surprise. Anyone who checks "white" plus another category will be reassigned into the minority category for civil rights monitoring and other purposes. They establish four "major" multiracial categories but do not say when, how, or if they should be used:

American Indian or Alaska Native and White
Asian and White
Black or African-American and White
American Indian or Alaska Native and Black or African American.

The balance of multiracial persons will be put into a category called, "balance of individuals reporting more than one race." OMB has preserved its ties with the Native Hawaiian political machine by allowing for the counting of any population that exceeds one percent of the population in an area. We wonder what has happened to the Asian/Black population, which is a "major" multiracial combination in this country.

Below are the problems with the guidelines, as they have been presented to us:

1. It is impossible to prove discrimination against a multiracial person. One minority race and one White responses are allocated to the minority race. The person becomes the minority race. Multiracial persons do not exist. You cannot in any way claim discrimination against a multiracial person. If the individual selects two or more minority races, the agency should use the race that the complainant alleges the discrimination was based on. Only one. In other words, the Executive Office of the President is allowing open discrimination against multiracial individuals. We have no protection.

2. OMB sought advice on these guidelines from "the civil rights community, and active participation from more than 30 agencies (including policy analysts, statisticians and representatives from law enforcement." Project RACE was not allowed to participate. The NAACP and other "civil rights" organizations were encouraged to participate.

3. The guidelines state in some places that this is for "civil rights monitoring and enforcement," but it is very vague about the other uses. It has been our experience that when OMB issues their vague guidelines, it applies to all government agencies. They state that "Census 2000 will be the first nationwide implementation of the revised standards." We have long stated and testified to the fact that our community desperately needs medical information on multiracial persons. Under OMB guidelines, agencies such as Health and Human Services will report their multiracial data as allocated to the minority categories.

4. With the issuing of this document, the federal government officially refuses to use the term "multiracial." This was our concern when other organizations in the multiracial community OK'd this action. There is no multiracial umbrella classification. There will not be. We are "people who pick more than one race." It would have been easy to allow us a multiracial umbrella category with subcategories. The Asian umbrella category includes the subcategories of Japanese, Chinese, etc. The Hispanic ethnicity umbrella category includes the subcategories of Mexican, Cuban, Latino, etc. But OMB and the Census Bureau refuse to treat the multiracial community as equally as the rest. The Association of Multiethnic Americans (AMEA) sanctioned this move by the government. Project RACE did not.

5. The addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses for OMB, which is supposed to serve the public, are not on their web site. Concerns and inquiries about OMB Bulletin No 00-02 should be directed to:

Jacob J. Lew
Director
Executive Office of the President
Office of Management and Budget
Washington, DC 20503

and

Katherine K. Wallman
Chief Statistician
Office of Management and Budget
(202) 395-3093