Racial classification is ubiquitous in American life. Job applications, university admissions, government contracts, and much more involve checking a box stating whether one is black, white, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American.

David Bernstein has written a surprising and revealing book on how these classifications came about, with the federal government playing a leading role. It asks:

• Should Pakistani, Chinese, and Filipino Americans be in the same category despite obvious differences in culture, appearance, religion, and more?
• Why does the government not allow Americans to classify themselves as biracial or multiracial?
• How did a dark-complexioned, burka-wearing Muslim Yemeni come to be classified as generically white while a blond-haired, blue-eyed newcomer is classified as minority if arriving from a country where Spanish is spoken?
• Why does the government require biomedical researchers to classify study participants by official racial categories that have no scientific basis?

Bernstein’s provocative book ends with a call for a separation of race and state. Commenting will be Jane Coaston, host of the New York Times’s podcast The Argument, and Prof. Robert Cottrol, a scholar of race and legal history at George Washington University Law School.