2010 Census Shows Blacks Prefer Negro, African American Label

Many wrote in terms including 'negro' and 'mulatto'

Remember when 2Pac said Marvin Gaye used to sing to him, and had him feeling like black was the thing to be? Well, to let the 2010 U.S. Census tell it, those days are about over.

According their findings almost one million people opted to write something else in the race box instead of check "black." Among the alternatives used were negro, Afro-American, African-American and more nationality specific terms like Nigerian, Ethiopian and Haitian.

Howard University professor Roderick Harrison says that more and more people want to identify themselves based on their specific experiences instead of just being lumped under one umbrella.

"These histories of exclusion, discrimination, and racism are central to the identities of several minority populations," he says, also mentioning that interracial marriage will play a part in blurring color lines even more in the future.

In addition to that trend, Latinos identified themselves as "some other race" since there were virtually no boxes for them to check off. Whites also seemed to want to branch out as a large number of them wrote in Italian, Polish, Irish and other terms.

"It's a continual problem to measure such a personal concept using a check box," says University of Minnesota sociology professor Carolyn Liebler to the Associated Press. "The world is changing, and more people today feel free to identify themselves however they want - whether it's black-white, biracial, Scottish-Nigerian or American. It can create challenges whenever a set of people feel the boxes don't fit them."

Do you remember what you checked off?