White House Proposes New Mideast Racial Category
The White House wants to add a new racial category for people from the Middle East and North Africa.
Under current law, people from the Middle East are considered white. But scholars and community leaders say more people from the Middle East are caught between white, black and Asian classifications that do not "fully reflect their identities," according to a report from USA Today.
"What it does is it helps these communities feel less invisible," Helen Samhan, from the Arab American Institute, said.
The law would not only affect people's racial identities, but it would affect the following:
- Enforcing the Voting Rights Act and drawing congressional and state legislative district boundaries;
- Establishing federal affirmative action plans and evaluating claims of employment discrimination in employment in the private sector;
- Monitoring discrimination in housing, mortgage lending and credit;
- Enforcing school desegregation policies; and
- Helping minority-owned small businesses get federal grants and loans.
The White House first took action on Friday, advancing the proposal with a notice in the Federal Register, asking for comments on whether to add Middle Eastern and North African as a separate race.
The proposal says the new Middle East and North African designation (MENA) is broader in concept than Arab or Muslim.
According to USA Today the new racial designation would include anyone from a region of the world all the way from Morocco to Iran, that includes Syrian and Coptic Christians, Israeli Jews, and other religious minorities.
If the proposal is approved, the new designation could show up on census forms in the year 2020, which could reportedly have implications on racial identity, anti-discrimination laws, and health research.
