Take Your Boxes and . . .: A nation of race rebels?

National Review, August 11, 2003 by Jay Nordlinger

Finally, I would like to introduce you to a mortgage broker you may appreciate knowing. He works at home, taking clients' applications by phone. He has the habit of checking Other and filling in "American" when race is demanded (as it always is, on the standard form). "I have fought many a battle with dimwitted yet determined underwriters who insist that I must check something more 'accurate.' When I point out to them that I take applications over the phone and can't possibly know the races of my borrowers, I am repeatedly told that I should make guesses, based on the sound of my clients' voices. If this weren't true, it would be hilarious."

There is much hilarity in these letters (and, gathered together, they would make an instructive compendium). But the subject is depressingly serious. Our governmental institutions may get more race-crazy, not less. But perhaps we are building a nation of race rebels, refusing to play along. One letter we received had a signature and then, in parentheses-simply as a statement- "Race Withheld."

That's the spirit.