Tiffany Haddish: ‘I’m white on paper’

African-American actress Tiffany Haddish has been a white woman on government lists for the past seven years after telling a census official she was “car-casian’.
The 37-year-old Girls Trip star, who appears in Jay-Z’s new Friends parody video as Phoebe, was stunned when a local official started quizzing her about her race during a census collection – and so she decided to have a little fun with him.
“I’m a white woman on paper,” Tiffany said during an appearance on The Late Show in America on Tuesday night (15Aug17). “Seven years ago… the census came and they showed up to my house, and they asked me what my nationality was, ‘cos they was counting to see how many black people are in the neighbourhood.
“I was like, ‘What do you mean? I’m American’. And he was like, ‘No, what’s your race?’ I was like, ‘Oh! So, we’re doing that today? We’re bringing racism in my front door on this day? What are you, colourblind?’ And he said, ‘Yes’.”
“I was like, ‘Ooh! This is my chance’… Obama said it’s time for change; you could be whatever you want to be today’… I looked at him (census collector) and said, ‘I’m car-casian, because I got a car and I know a lot of Asians…’, so I just put that together. I told him I was ‘car-casian’ and he said, ‘OK’. He checked the white box!”