You are a sociology advising the Census Bureau in preparation for the 2020 U. S. Census. Others in the agency argue for a comprehensive list of racial categories so that no one has to select "Other." How would you explain that the creation of mutually exclusive categories is not possible

Answer: A person may identify as more than one race in the listed racial categories.

Explanation:

Mutually exclusive racial categories include black, Asian, white. Two racial categories are mutually exclusive if an individual can identity themselves clearly with only one and not the other. However, race is not always as clearly defined as one of the two results of tossing a coin, heads or tails.

This is especially true for people who are biracial. For example, if a person has a black parent and an Asian parent, does this person identify as black or Asian? The "other" category covers categories such as this, that are not mutually exclusive.