Beyond Black and White and Race Matters

Beyond Black and White: Remaking Race in America, written by Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean explains how intermarriages are more common now then it was before, now its legal. in 1967 intermarriage was illegal in 16 states, the government did want to allow intermariages because that would give liberty to the minorities for Voting Rights, less help for minorities will be provided, and because it was hard to determine who is actually an America. Although blacks were considered the lowest race in the nation back then, they were still considered American, because many didn't come from Africa. In the census blacks were categorized as a race, yet as the number of multicultural families began to rise, the census began to change, in 1850, the census added the words "mulatto", "quadroon", and "octoroon", to define the percentage of black people were:

• Mulatto: mixed black and white
• Quadroon: one fourth black "blood"
• Octoroon:  one-eighth black blood

Quadroon and Octoroon were removed in 1900, because there was many confussion and Mulatto was removed in 1930 because it was concidered racist.
After this people were only aloud to mark one race in the census, which was called the "one- drop rule", later on in 1980, there was a debate if Hispanics and Asians were considered as Americas, so in the 1980 census, Hispanics was not a race, they were separated. So in other words, if you were a Hispanic or Latino, or Asian were labeled as "other". Years passed by and in 1997, an announcement was made that Americans could now identify themseleves on more then two races. When the 2000 census came, people could classify themselves and their children as more then one race; except Hispanics and Latinos.
In the 2000 census the options were:

• Black
• White
• Native Hawaiian
• Asian
• Other Pacific Islander
• American Indian
• Alaska Native
• Other

they concidered that Latinos and Hispanics could be any race. Though as years passed by, it was noticeable that more and more Latinos and Asians, were getting mixed with "white" blood, meaning they had to be considered American if you are born here or become a United States citizen.

The reading "Race Matters" by Cornel West explains that no matter what happens and how this world has evolve they believe black people are still a problem in America. Conservatives still see black people as a problem, they don't care about problems blacks have, they believe that in order for black people to fir in their "society" they have to:

• Behave properly
• be worth of acceptence 
• and have to follow the way of living of the conservatives (the life style)

as of liberals they believe that black believe have to be included into one society, like put in a corner or something, and what Cornel West explains in this article is that black people don't that away from America as they seem to be portrayed to the liberals and conservatives, but "rather constitutive elements to that life." Meaning American society has problems all around and the finger shouldn't be pointed to black Americas. 

its sad to see that Americans can't move on from the past.