> I don't think it's right or normal at all and I don't agree that this was standard practice prior to this admin.
It's normal (the basic structure has been used since 1980), though there was a proposal which didn't end up being used to consolidate the race and Hispanic origin questions for 2020.
> The 2010 US Census included changes designed to more clearly distinguish Hispanic ethnicity as not being a race. That included adding the sentence: "For this census, Hispanic origins are not races."
Government forms should simply ask about ethnicity, not race, and certainly shouldn't be asking both. I don't see why anyone who isn't racist would object to that. You can definitively call someone racist for listing ethnicities as different races.
It's normal (the basic structure has been used since 1980), though there was a proposal which didn't end up being used to consolidate the race and Hispanic origin questions for 2020.