The reason those questions are asked is so there can be accountability when (for example) white supremacists try to hire only white people. That portion of the application is typically visible to HR but not the hiring manager.
So, counterintuitively, the orgs with the forms asking all the probing questions about your skin color are more likely to be making an effort to not be a boring homogeneous mass of people. Maybe just for bragging rights about being a "diverse workplace," but, it's better than nothing.
This country has a history of treating people with darker skin worse, and there were several propaganda campaigns during slavery times which painted black people in particular as inferior. So now we've gotta fight against that social momentum from the past with countermeasures in the present.
The essay, and my comment, were not about that: they were wider reflections on the naming of the thing affects not just how society thinks of us but how we think of ourselves.
We all have several “labeled” roles or identities simultaneously: parent, child, driver, citizen, voter, customer, etc. Some are simple, some quite complex and many quite ambiguous.
I think most, if not all people understand the motivation for such questions and I hope most people understand that those questions are well intended. I also don’t know of a different way to handle the issue.
But it’s not a criticism to point out the problems and ambiguities that arise.
So, counterintuitively, the orgs with the forms asking all the probing questions about your skin color are more likely to be making an effort to not be a boring homogeneous mass of people. Maybe just for bragging rights about being a "diverse workplace," but, it's better than nothing.
This country has a history of treating people with darker skin worse, and there were several propaganda campaigns during slavery times which painted black people in particular as inferior. So now we've gotta fight against that social momentum from the past with countermeasures in the present.