Anyone who’s ever filled out a census document or taken the SATs is familiar with that odd moment when you have to bubble in your racial classification. For many, the choices are confusing, limiting, and problematic. In the end, each person bubbles in what they best feel represents their identity. But when Mostafa Hefny immigrated to the United States from Egypt in 1978, he didn’t get a say in that decision. “The government [interviewer] said, ‘You are now white,” Hefny told CBS Detroit. Since the 1980s, CBS reports, Henfy has been fighting to have the U.S. government reclassify him as black, which is how he’s always seen himself. “My classification as a white man takes away my black pride, my black heritage and my strong black identity,” Henfy told the Detroit News. Hefny, 61, filed a suit in 1997 against the U.S. government to be reclassified, but his case was dismissed. Hefny has also reached out to President Obama for help, writing him a letter on June 29, the Detroit News reports, as well as the Justice Department and the United Nations. “I have been awarded, inadvertently, the negative effects of being black such as racial profiling, stereotypes and disenfranchisement due to my Negroid features. However, the legal demand of my racial classification of ‘white’ prevents me from receiving benefits established for black people, “ he told CBS. Hefny says he’s lost out on university teaching positions because they were positions designed for a minority and he did not qualify. Currently, Directive 15 for the federal Office of Management and Budget Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity defines race by the following categories: Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black of African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific islander, White, Nonresident alien, Resident alien, and Race/ethnicity unknown. (READ: Should the Census Be Asking People If They Are Negro?) “White” is defined as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa” — which … Continue reading Egyptian Immigrant Wants to be Reclassified as Black