Near the end of his time in office, Barack Obama worked to establish a new minority classification for Americans that was to have been called MENA, which stands for Middle East and North Africa. The motivation for this push was to create yet another minority voting bloc to whom Democrats could appeal with their typical identity politics.

The Office of Management and Budget has proposed two changes to categorizing of ethnic groups in America in preparation for the 2020 census. One is to recognize the MENA ethnic group. And the other is to create an official category of “Hispanic,” which would classify only those of Central America, South America and Caribbean decent as “Hispanic,” irrespective of whether they self-identify as white. It’s an attempt to more narrowly define “white.”

The motivation for this classification change seems to be aimed at preventing the category of white being applied to those of non-European decent and to prevent the continued growth of the white majority. Michael Lind wrote last year in Politico, “If increasing numbers of Hispanics identify as white and their descendants are defined as ‘white’ in government statistics, there may be a white majority in the U.S. throughout the 21st century.”

The problem here is not only the rather arbitrary and artificial creation of new ethnic categories, but even more significantly the balkanization intent behind the government recognizing even more minority groups. The U.S. has always been a nation where Americans are identified primarily by a set of values and rights enshrined in the Constitution — we’re all part of the melting pot. The push to elevate differences between Americans serves only to instill greater divisions that subvert rather than uphold the values set forth by our Founding Fathers. Racism will never be overcome in this nation if one’s race is upheld as being of greater consequence than one’s status of being an American citizen. In other words, citizenship should always be a much greater factor than race.

The Office of Management and Budget has opened-up a 10 day window in which Americans have the opportunity to comment on the proposed new ethnic classifications. One can offer comment on the proposed changes here.