Ethno-Racial Pentagon Analysis

Throughout American politics, two particularly well known categorizations of race and ethnicity have arisen: "Color Dichotomy" and the later "Ethno-racial Pentagon." Each seeks to define and categorize the vast racial diversity America prides itself on. While intending to create clear and fair ethno-racial constructions, there are obvious advantages and weak spots to each for the purposes of analyzing American politics.

An "old-fashioned" and less popular method of categorization is the "Color Dichotomy." This concept distinguishes two complementing counterparts to every situation; in terms of race and ethnicity: white and nonwhite (people of color). In the US, about 75% of Americans identify as white, while about 25% of Americans identify
In contrast to the two divisions within the color dichotomy, the ethno-racial pentagon provides five more specific categorizations of race/ethnicity: Euro-American, Asian American, African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Indigenous Peoples/Native American. "To be sure, a value of the pentagon is its capacity to call attention to a certain range of social and cultural diversity" (Hollinger 25). The pentagon also keeps some simplicity, however, so that people are easily categorized for the purposes of affirmative action...etc. Although this framework is more attentive to the differences in the "nonwhite" group of the Color Dichotomy, it also still retains similar problems of ignoring certain races or collapsing many together into one. All of these ethno-racial blocs have distinguishable diversities which are ignored in order to be jammed into one category or another. Least apparent is the diversity within the Euro-American bloc, or whites. Indeed, Jews, who are now considered Euro-American/white, used to be considered a different race altogether. The Irish and the English, between which existed the vehement tension of conflict and oppression, are now thrust together under the same category with the ethno-racial pentagon. The internal diversity within the Asian American group (Koreans, Cambodians, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese...and all of the consequent subgroups) must be quietly faded in
According the pentagon, Arabs do not even exist in the US. Multiracial people must either choose only one of their heritages and ignore the other, or choose not to be included under the pentagon. Both of these groups threaten to turn the pentagon into a hexagon. However, even this conformation would be unsuccessful as multiracial people are not necessarily part of their own racial group, but two or more. Ignoring their legitimate ethnicities to create a new bloc which only recognizes the fact that they are multiracial, and not their individual races, would create further problems. These visibly unfair factors continue to weaken the foundation supporting the ethno-racial