'Negro' Not Allowed On Federal Forms? White House To Decide
The Trump administration has delayed announcing its decision on an Obama-era proposal to stop allowing the term "Negro" to appear on federal forms collecting information about race.
It has been called antiquated and even insulting.
But back in 1900, "Negro" was considered modern — a term that could replace a flawed set of categories used to classify people of African descent for the U.S. census.
This was a period when a person's race was determined by a census taker, who reported the information back to the federal government based on observations. "Be particularly careful to distinguish between blacks, mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons," census takers were instructed for the 1890 census.
The word "black" should be used to describe those persons who have three-fourths or more black blood; "mulatto," those persons who have from three-eighths to five-eighths black blood; "quadroon," those persons who
