Question: Were
there 165,063 or 190,717 blacks in Colorado in 2000?
Answer: Yes.
The answer you get depends on how you look at racial tabulations
in the 2000 census, which gave Americans more options than ever to
describe their race.
In 1990, the Census Bureau broke race into five categories:
white, black, American Indian, Asian/Pacific Islander and other.
In 2000, the categories were expanded to six: white, black,
American Indian, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and other.
For the first time, people could identify themselves as being of
two or more races. For example, a child of an Asian mother and white
father no longer had to choose one or the other. She could identify
herself as being both Asian and white.
The result is 63 unique combinations of race. With so many colors
on the palette, Colorado's self-portrait is more realistic than
ever.
But the expanded racial categories make direct comparisons with
earlier censuses difficult. For example, how many people who
selected both American Indian and Asian in 2000 selected American
Indian in 1990? It's impossible to say, so it's impossible to know
precisely how much the American Indian population changed during
that time.
When comparing the 2000 census with earlier censuses, The Gazette
will report how many people identified exclusively with any of the
six single-race categories. It also will report how many people
identified with two or more races. Adding these seven numbers
together produces the total population.
Using that method, there were 165,063 blacks in Colorado in 2000.
But the number grows to 190,717 if you tally all people who count
themselves as at least partly black - people who selected black
alone plus people who selected black in combination with some other
race.
Some people may prefer using this method, but it has a
mathematical downside: If you count the other races the same way and
add them together, the sum is greater than the actual population.
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