Amitai Etzioni teaches at The George Washington University and is the author of The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics (New York: The Free Press, 1988).

The upcoming 2000 census is a reminder that the time has come to drop the idea that Americans can be neatly divided into racial categories.

In 1990, nearly 10 million Americans already considered their racial identity as neither white nor black nor brown nor yellow but as "other." The number of interracial children has quadrupled since 1970, reaching the 2-million mark. Given that the number of intermarriages is six times higher than it was in 1960, the number of interracial Americans is sure to rise sharply in the future. Indeed, sociologists predict that America will look more and more like Hawaii's blended racial mix within a generation.

A major step to recognize this development, and to allow its full sociological importance to unfold, requires that the U.S. census allow Americans to classify themselves as "multi-racial."

¿Doctoring' the count

This matter has been mishandled so far in several ways.

In the 1990 census, the government required Americans to box themselves into one of 16 racial categories. The main groupings were white and black, which accounted for 92% of all Americans. The census did, however, recognize in 1990 that more Americans are of mixed racial background and that millions who might be viewed as members of one race wish to pass as members of another. Some, especially Hispanic Americans, even change their minds as to which race they belong over their lifetime.

The 1990 census allowed all these Americans, or for that matter anyone who wished, to use the label of "other." It is hardly an attractive label; it suggests that those who do not classify themselves by race are outsiders who do not belong. Despite the unattractiveness of this label, about 9.8 million Americans, 4% of the total population, chose this designation rather than be defined according to the established mono-racial categories.

When the Census Bureau released the data for use by the government, it "modified" the figures. Some say they "cooked" the data. It did so by eliminating the "other" category and reclassifying its members according to the mono-racial categories, as if the Census Bureau was saying what some rather racist regimes did: We will tell you what your race is.

The motives for this troubling move are unclear. The bureau argues that the modification allows for better comparisons with past data, when the category of "other" did not exist. The question that we face now is whether future censuses should prevent people from ignoring all racial categories and, if the answer is "yes," what they may be called.

Suggestions to include the multi-racial category make some black leaders furious. Abraham K. Sundiata, chairman of Afro-American studies at Brandeis University, sees a drive to undermine black solidarity. He fears that in cities where blacks now hold majorities, the new category will divide them and undermine their dominance. All of this will happen, he implies, because some blacks will be forced into the new multi-racial category. He disregards the fact that people will be free to check the box of their choice, even if the new category is added.

There are strong reasons to include a multi-racial category in the census

Another reason several black leaders object to a multi-racial category is that race data are used for the enforcement of civil-rights legislation in employment, voting rights, mortgage lending, health-care services and educational opportunities. They fear that the category could decrease the number of blacks in the nation's official statistics and thus undermine efforts to enforce anti-discrimination statutes, as well as undercut numerous social programs based on racial quotas.

Indeed, if many members of various minorities choose to classify themselves outside specially "protected" groups, the flow of public funds, the number of specially designated federal contracts and affirmative action jobs all would diminish. But the social costs of the political gimmick of assigning people to a racial category that they seek to avoid are considerable.

Toward a 'colorblind' society

Even if the most far-reaching arguments against affirmative action and for a "colorblind" society carry the day, the option of dropping the whole social construction of race is simply not at issue now. However, there are strong sociological reasons to favor the inclusion of a multi-racial category in the census. We also should abandon the practice of "modifying" the racial numbers, and keep Americans in the category they choose themselves.

Introducing a multi-racial category has the potential to soften the racial lines that now divide America by rendering them more like economic differences and less like harsh, almost immutable caste lines of racial categories. Sociologists long have observed that a major reason America experiences relatively few confrontations along lines of class is that people believe they can move from one economic strata to another. Moreover, the U.S. has no sharp class demarcation lines as in Britain, where you often can tell a person's class by the way he or she speaks.

If the new category is adopted and if more Americans choose the category -- as is likely given the high rates of interracial marriage and a desire by millions of Americans to avoid being racially boxed -- the new census category may go a long way toward softening sharply delineated racial lines and foster a society where differences are blurred. It will make it much more likely that the census of, say, 2030 will be more like Hawaii, where races mix rather freely, and less like India, with its castes.

If the multi-racial concept is allowed into the national statistics, it soon will enter the social vocabulary. It will make American society less stratified along racial lines, less rigidly divided and thus more like one community. These changes already have begun to unfold. In California, where our future is often previewed, there is already an Association for Multi-Ethnic Americans, and in several states, lawmakers have introduced legislation to allow the multi-racial category on school forms. At least two states, Georgia and Indiana, have required all government agencies to use the multi-racial category.

Unfortunately, the 2000 census may be moving us in the opposite direction. It abolished the category of "other" and instead offers Americans the opportunity to mark as many races as they wish. If the bureau were to release the information referring to blended Americans as "multiracial" or "non-racial," it would encourage the nation to view itself as less divided. But if it rules in favor of those groups that seek to box people into mono-racial categories, the bureau will harden the social divisions that trouble America.

All in the same boat

At stake is the question of what kind of America we envision for the longer run. Some see a complete blur of racial lines with Americans constituting some kind of new hybrid race. Time magazine ran a cover story on the subject, led by a computer composite of a future American with some features of each race ¿ almond-shaped eyes, straight but dark hair, milk-chocolate skin. This new, rather handsome breed would take much more than a change in racial nomenclature, but such a change could serve as a step in that direction.

If a multi-racial category is included in the next census, we may wish to add one more category later -- that of "multi-ethnic," one that most Americans might wish to check. Then we would live to recognize the full importance of my favorite African American saying: We came in many ships, but we now ride in the same boat.