<p>Last semester on of my best friends who goes to a top school encountered this situation:</p>
<p>She was drinking at a party one night, underaged, and got busted by the campus cops. So as she was getting written up the cop asks her for her race, she said, “Just check ‘mixed’.” The cop, very rudely said, “There is no ‘mixed’. What are you? Black, white, asian, hispanic of Native-American?”
My friend said, “Then just check ‘other’.” And the cop of course said, there is no ‘other’".</p>
<p>My friend was really stumped at this point because, her dad is black/native american, and her mom is white/philipino, and she grew up in a spanish country which made her an almost perfect mixture of all of the available options. The cop told her to just pick which one she identified with. But she told the cop that she didn’t identify with any.</p>
<p>The cop was getting really upset this time and my friend was tipsy and very frustrated at this time. The cop kept pushing but my friend still didn’t know what to say she ended up just saying black because at this point the cop looked like she wanted to arrest her instead of just writing her up.</p>
<p>What I’m writing this to say is that what kind of place doesn’t have at least an ‘other’ or ‘mixed’ option? Is this still pretty common throughout the US or could this lack of options just be an isolated incident. And what do you think can be done to identify people like my friend (because lets face it, race is still an important part of identifying people.)</p>
<p>I am mixed (white/Hispanic) and I can’t recall a time when there wasn’t an option. That is very strange to me. Especially if it happened in Lansing/East Lansing when the area is very racially diverse.</p>
<p>She should’ve said white. They would’ve dropped the charges then.</p>
<p>^Haha no.</p>
<p>That is weird. When I got a speeding ticket I think they put me down as, and this is straight from the online record, “WHITE,CAUCASIAN,ASIATIC INDIAN,ARAB” (first two are spot-on, last two are totally wrong). They didn’t even ask me for it. </p>
<p>It might just have to do with criminal statistics reporting. I don’t know if the FBI UCR has an option for “other” but if it doesn’t then that might explain why they didn’t have such an option. I do agree that they ought to have an “other.” But your friend should have just played along after he said there was no option for “mixed” and gone with her gut. I know I would have just said “white” and been done with it.</p>
<p>I think in the South its “White” and “Other” only.</p>
<p>lol, the irony of deriding an entire geographic region as being full of prejudiced racists</p>
<p>gotta love liberals.</p>
<p>^lumping a whole group of people into a misguided category based on one uninformed post.</p>
<p>Gotta love conservatives.</p>
<p>^using those two words like there is no other way to describe or fit into politics</p>
<p>Gotta love people that blindly follow political parties or ideologies</p>
<p>Generalizing based on ■■■■■■.</p>
<p>Gotta love CC.</p>
<p>Generalizing that CC is full of ■■■■■■</p>
<p>Gotta love…</p>
<p>Who am I kidding CC is like 50% ■■■■■■</p>
<p>
^This. </p>
<p>Geez people, calm down and quit taking everything so seriously.</p>
<p>“Who am I kidding the internet is like 50% ■■■■■■”</p>
<p>fixed that for you</p>
<p>There usually is an “other” option. The real curiosity is why Arabic peoples are considered caucasian (white) and not their own minority. Conspiracy I say…</p>