Eli5: Why does the US Government classify Arabs/Middle Easterners as white?

Question

So according to the US government, Arabs, Persians, Kurdish, etc people are white. Why is this?

In: Other

Answer 1

This just in… US changes how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. It’s the first revision in 27 years

https://apnews.com/article/race-ethnicity-census-bureau-hispanics-0b2c325b683efd95e8e8e24235654abd