By the year 2042, whites are projected to be in the U.S., rather than an ethnic majority, a new Census Bureau report predicts.
This is eight years sooner than previously predicted.
And this is news...why?
First off, the way this is being framed is that "," because 54% of people in the U.S. will self-identify as Hispanic, black, Asian, Native American, Pacific islander or other. Non-Hispanic whites will still be the largest ethnic group, they'll just come in at under 50% of the population.
I guess this is supposed to make me worried about increased diversity or something.
And worse, scream the reports, by the 2020 presidential election, more than half of the electorate will be non-white.
Heaven help us.
The Times article offers a little perspective, but it's all historic in nature. In 1492, when Columbus "discovered" this place where there were already a bunch of people living, 96% of the inhabitants were non-white. By 1900, that number was something more like 10%.
The non-white population jumped in the 1920s and 1930s. Want to know why? Jews and people of eastern European descent weren't considered white by the Census Bureau.
I guess that must have changed when we took over the media and the government, huh?
I don't really think I have to sit here and argue about how we shouldn't fear ethnic and religious minorities, strangers, foreigners, third-party candidates and other un-American people like vegetarians, lactose-intolerant people, those who are allergic to gluten, and (God help us!) people who drive compact cars (wow, I think I managed to cover everyone who either currently reads this blog, has read this blog, or is likely to read this blog in the future). So I won't.
The most disturbing thing about this being widely reported as important news is that we're currently in the middle of The Great Immigration Debate. We already have this fear that people are sneaking into this country to steal jobs from God-fearing white Americans (who are lining up to pick apples and wash dishes, I know), and that if we let our guard down for one second, someone will blow something up and the terrorists will win.
(We'll skip the fact that it was a couple of God-fearing white Americans who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma, because if we don't, the terrorists will win.)
Here's what I think will happen as the population starts to take on a more even ethnic distribution. I think that whites will finally start to notice that the people in power – at all levels of government, in the business world, among their associates at health clubs and country clubs – no longer look like the people they see when they go shopping, to the movies, to baseball games, and everywhere else.
Will we do anything with that realization? I'm not optimistic. But I am hopeful.
December 26th, 2009 at 09:36
What’s also weird about this type of reporting is that the implication is much stronger than the reality. For instance, the term “hispanic” is kind of a misnomer because it presupposes that all those from Latin countries will identify with each other, and we all know that they see themselves as more from their own country than as one specific race of people. The same goes for Asians; just try calling someone of Japanese descent Chinese and see how far that goes. Sure, maybe after a good number of generations people feel more free to identify themselves as something else, but for the purposes of these types of projections, the information is never complete, so it comes across as a scare tactic, of sorts.