The series of webcasts will focus on election data held in ICPSR's archives, and how to use them for analysis and teaching.

The event is designed for the social sciences data community at large including researchers, librarians, teaching faculty, students, and policymakers from around the world who are interested in the use of social science data.

The first day will provide an orientation to ICPSR's services, including a tutorial on navigating our newly redesigned Web site. Other topics will include the American National Election Studies, minority voting behavior, and using election data in classroom instruction.

Note on registering: you must do so one session at a time and the default is to list Eastern Time. However, at the registration screen, you can change to Central Time so that your confirmation emails will have the right time listed.

In the 2010 Census, there were 57 different combinations of race possible. When the data are categorized by ethnicity (Hispanic or not Hispanic) as well, the combinations double to 114.

The US is in the middle of major demographic change. The Pew Research Center describes some of the aspects of this change, not the least of which is that between April 2010 and July 2011, over 90% of the nation's growth came from Hispanics of any race, plus non-Hispanic African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and American Native Hawaiians & other Pacific Islanders.

So what are the headlines for this data? Per Google News

"Whites Account for Under Half of Births in the US"
"Minority Birth Rate: Racial and Ethnic Minorities Surpass Whites..."
"Non-white Births Outnumber White Births for the First Time in US"
"Racial and Ethnic Babies Surpass US Caucasian Births"

All of these headlines share similar flaws.

1. We are all supposed to know that "whites" mean "white, non-Hispanic". Because apparently, white Hispanics don't exist.
2. That the rich detail on demographic differences in non-white populations of any ethnicity are of no interest.
3. That the white, non-Hispanic population is the only one worth highlighting.
4. That because the white, non-Hispanic population no longer exceeds 50% of all births, it is a "minority".

Or to summarize, according to the reporting,

• There's nothing wrong with lumping together 113 race and ethnicity combinations in order to focus on what's really important: the white, non-Hispanic population, aka combination 114.
• Nor is there anything wrong with saying that because one combination out of 114 no longer exceeds 50% of all births, then that combination is a minority, which is incorrect.

Even the Census Bureau falls into this trap. As you can see below in the screenshot of their table on population change, not only is the white, non-Hispanic population the only combination of that type displayed, but it's at the top-most level of the outline and it's bolded and in all capitals. Talk about drawing a picture with statistics.

Writing about such major demographic change - the growth of the population of every other kind of American - as if it's a story primarily about the fate of the white, non-Hispanic population only makes sense in a nation which privileges the white, non-Hispanic population as the single most important group. It's a textbook case of how institutionalized racism pervades our environment, misdirects our attention and leads to sloppy reporting.

(1) Bureau, U. C. (n.d.). 2010 Census Shows America's Diversity. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://2010.census.gov/news/releases/operations/cb11-cn125.html

(2) Passel, J., Livingston, G., & Cohn, D. (n.d.). Explaining Why Minority Births Now Outnumber White Births | Pew Social & Demographic Trends. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/05/17/explaining-why-minority-births-now-outnumber-white-births/

(3) Tavernise, S. (2012, May 17). Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/us/whites-account-for-under-half-of-births-in-us.html

(4) YEN, H. (2012, May 17). Minority Birth Rate: Racial and Ethnic Minorities Surpass Whites In U.S. Births For First Time, Census Reports. Huffington Post. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/census-minority-birth-rate_n_1523150.html

(5) Non-white births outnumber white births for the first time in US. (2012, May 17).Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9271573/Non-white-births-outnumber-white-births-for-the-first-time-in-US.html

(6) Racial and ethnic babies surpass US caucasian births | kare11.com. (n.d.).kare11.com. Retrieved from http://www.kare11.com/news/article/976436/391/Racial-and-ethnic-babies-surpass-US-caucasian-births?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Cbc%7Clarge

Added to the homepage are:

• Quick Facts on the left hand side of the screen for summary statistics about states and counties.


• the FTP server on right hand side of the screen for large volume and historical (1980 for Census of Population & Housing; 1972 for Economic Census) data needs.

Modifications include:

• Topics filtering menu text explicitly indicating what you'll find in it like the list of datasets.


• Relabeling the former "population groups" filter menu as "Race and Ethnic Groups" with text underneath adding "ancestry" and "tribe".


• Geographic Selection now works more like the original American Factfinder in that it walks the user through the geographic hierarchy. However, this version works better than the original and the first iteration of the new American Factfinder.

Bookmarking and browser support remain problems.

Direct URL: http://www.lib.umn.edu/get/16525