There are two camps. On the one hand, colorblindness is a problem as long as social equality is not achieved. It might be a wonderful ideal to aim for, but one can't presume that we're now completely race neutral and we'll achieve social justice.

On the other hand, the "race blindness" camp is strong in saying, "Why should we perpetuate the very same categories that were used for such unbelievably sinister purposes? Wouldn't some other measures of addressing the injustice of the past be more appropriate?" Whenever somebody fills in the affirmative action form, they probably have that reaction -- "My God, why should I classify myself racially? Shouldn't we steer policies more toward a form of social equalization that will make these categories unnecessary?"

What's been going on with racial categories in the census is also interesting.

The census had two rules. One is the 1997 rule that permitted everyone to mark more than one box in the 2000 census. Then came the 2000 evaluation procedure, which allowed the census to classify anyone who marked more than one box as part of the "people of color" category -- if there was a white and color mix indicated.

Essentially, it's one thing to say that a person can fall into multiple racial categories, but what happens to all the people in the old categories? It can have some disastrous consequences now because in some states, apparently many white Americans found it fashionable to indicate that they were Native American. In some counties where Native Americans were a minority they may now end up as a majority. There are lots of headaches with counting and civil rights and voting rights and districting that are going to come in the next two years as a result of this census decision.

How will interracial relationships affect America demographically in the future?

The U.S. Census presumes that there is no interracial procreation going on. The predictions it makes about the future population of the United States are based on the assumption that after tonight at midnight, no further interracial relationship takes place. It is an absurd assumption. If we include the possibility of interracial procreation, the future population of the United States will look completely different from what the census predictions tell us now. The "browning of America by 2050" prediction, which says that whites will no longer be in the majority by 2050, assumes that procreation will happen only within the five affirmative action categories.

Why don't they take interracial marriage into account?

I really can't understand why this variable isn't put into play. They predict all kinds of things -- like whether more people will move to cities or fewer will move to cities. But they don't predict that after today there will be any children born to parents who fall into different race categories.

But if you acknowledge a mixed-race population, there's going to be an even larger future mixed-race population, even if you presume just a continuation of the last 10 years of interracial progeny.

Some people have the sense that more intermarriage will promote racial harmony.

Where we are now is just on the point of overcoming the legacy of a very long and exceptional set of prohibitions against interracial marriage. We're merely correcting a serious and long-lasting social block. There is beginning to be more reflection on the possibility of multiracial identity. I'm not a Utopian and I don't think there's anything necessarily superterrific that will come from that. I myself don't think that racial harmony is guaranteed by interracial marriage. But I think that racial disharmony was guaranteed by prohibiting it.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"