I'm Jewish. Am I a minority? I'm thin. Am I a minority? Is "minority" mainly a legal term?
I'm short (5' 7") and white (Jewish). I was a very small child. Bigger kids bullied me. I even fought back, but lost. Are short men minorities, even if white? Studies say they are less likely to get hired and they get paid less, but there are an equal number of men who are 5' 7" as there are 6' 3".
From the standpoint of dating, I think I'd rather be a black guy who's 6' 4" than a white guy who's 5' 7". From the standpoint of everything else, I'm not sure. If I were 6' 4", I might be a professional basketball player (with my skills).
1
Snap! The New York Times goes all sociological. Can it be so? Be still, my heart.
3
What jumped out at me in the 1.27.19 magazine is the inclusion of Wesley Morris' essay "Fair Share" with the article on Mitch McConnell. It seems to me that McConnell's work in the Senate, especially in regard to the next 20-30 years of the judiciary, illustrates the tendency of a "small minority to hog the driver's seat." McConnell is doing everything he can to make sure this happens by 2044 through stacking the courts, protecting the wealthy and their money, and obstructing anything that may benefit "minority" groups because it has in mind the greater good, i.e. Obamacare. Also interesting is that the article focuses primarily on what McConnell does and how he does it, rather than why. He simply calls it defending "Traditional. Republican. Positions" -- which are designed to support minority rule when "white Americans find themselves outnumbered."
3
Went to dinner at a local bar here in Philly for a regular Sunday nite out. A group of three 20-somethings were sitting next to us and they were talking about taking jobs in Boston or NYC. I was eavesdropping I guess. One was a white guy, one was an asian guy , and one was an asian woman. They were talking about the pros and cons of each city - clearly the two top choices for high-powered grads. They did not talk about cost of living, or long commutes. They spoke about where they felt the most comfortable crossing the street (it wasn't Boston...) My kids never had to include that in the calculus of where they wanted to live and work.
3
With the NYTimes, and most of the media, it's all race, all the time, now more than ever, never let up.....
9
This should be required reading of every US citizen who wants to clearly understand THE fundamental factor of what is fueling society today. The friction, AND, the cause for hope comes from THIS dynamic. Best essay I’ve read in years!
And speaking purely for myself, as a member of the “majority” - i.e. white males - I want to share that I totally admit/agree that we’ve not done a very good job on top of the food chain. I sincerely apologize for being a butt. It is time for EVERYONE to pull up a seat at the table somehow. Welcome! Together, we CAN do better. There are no minorities - just us - all of us - together. Now - how can I help?
Great essay!
3
The 60 comments in print at 06:41 GMT should be required reading for the following, among others:
Lauretta Charlton, the new Editor at Times Newsletter, Race/Related
John H. Thompson, the present Director of the US Census Bureau and his successor who must be named when Thompson leaves his post on June 30, 2019
All New York Times columnists who faithfully use USCB terminology in their columns - without blinking.
If you wonder why I propose this, read the 60 comments to see if you can summarize some main themes.
I will also try to inform some of my heroes in this field including: Dorothy Roberts, Adolph Read, Kenneth Prewitt, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and Adrian Piper, all of whom I believe understand that there is one race, the human, but within that race an extraordinary variety of individuals.
That variety, even here in little Linköping, Sweden, makes every single day much more worth living than would be the case were we all cloned from - you pick.
Why? Ask me.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
2
Comments reveal most commentators mistakenly believe that America is growing more racially and more ethnically diverse, but the opposite is true.
Census Bureau data shows the United States is currently 76.6 percent white, up from 75.1 percent in 2000. The Census Bureau forecasts that whites will make up 93.9 percent of the population in 2060. The reason is that most immigrants are white. America is growing whiter.
Census data shows that Hispanics make up 18.1 percent of the U.S. population, but this doesn’t make Hispanics an ethnic minority. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey shows that, collectively, Hispanics are America’s largest ethnic group. They outnumber German Americans—the second largest ethic group— by a small margin, which is rapidly becoming a large margin. By country of origin, Mexico ranks third behind Germany and Ireland but ahead of England, Italy and hundreds of other countries.
Hispanics are already the majority in our most populous states—California and Texas—which daily grow less diverse as the Hispanic population grows. The nation is not growing more racially or ethnically diverse; it is merely growing more Hispanic.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf
1
@William Case
And a growing number of Hispanics think of themselves as white. Food for thought, people of color.
5
@William Case
The projections you’ve shared show the total white population (alone or in combination) decreasing from 79.7% in 2014 to 74.3% in 2060, and the non-Hispanic white population decreasing from 62.2% in 2014 to 43.6% in 2060. Nowhere does it project that whites will make up 93.9% of the population in 2060. In fact, it states that “the United States is projected to become more racially and ethnically diverse in the coming years.”
2
@Madame X
In the 2010 United States Census, 50.5 million Americans (16.3% of the total population) listed themselves as ethnically Hispanic or Latino. Of those, 53.0% (26.7 million) self-identified as racially white. The remaining respondents listed their races as: some other race 36.7%, two or more races (multiracial) 6.0%, Black or African American 2.5%, American Indian and Alaska Native 1.4%, Asian 0.4%, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 0.1%.”
Most Hispanic Americans are white. They are no darker skinned than other Americans who have Southern European ancestry. Why does actor Andy Garcia (Cuban American) but not actor Al Pacino (Italian American) count as a person of color? Blonde, blue-eyed actress Cameron Diaz went to Hollywood instead of college, but she would have been eligible for affirmative action in college admission because she's Hispanic--a person of color.
1
As I see it, modern American politics boils down to a faction that believes in leveling the playing field for all humans as much as possible and another that believes doing so is unfair to those who have, until now, enjoyed the high ground (and in many cases, refuse to believe that the problem exists). Both sides struggle to identify where and how the playing field is uneven, and even among those who believe most ardently in ensuring that everyone gets an equal opportunity, there are vehement disagreements as to how to do it best. The problem is that race, class, religion, etc all do an imperfect job of identifying those who are disadvantaged by their personal life history, and humans have always excelled at rigging the game in their favor, regardless of what rules of play are put in place. I certainly don't pretend to know how to solve such an intransigent problem, but we might start by systematically working to educate those who don't believe the playing field is not level. Only when a NUMERICAL majority of our society believes that the rules of engagement have to change will we be able to get on to the messy business of how to do so.
3
@AndiB
Poor non-Hispanic whites outnumber poor Hispanics as wells as poor blacks.
The U.S. Census Bureau 2017 Poverty Report (Table 3: People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics) shows that 26.4 million white Americans, 8.99 million black Americans and 1.95 million Asian Americans live below poverty level. Whites make up 70.72 percent of Americans below poverty level.
Hispanics can be of any race or combination of races. The Census Bureau poverty report shows that 16.9 million non-Hispanic whites live below poverty level while 10.7 million Hispanics of all races live below poverty level.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.pdf
5
Wesley Morris rightly points to the emotional and political problems of using the terms minority and majority. But it would make for a fuller argument were he to point to societies where a different terminology or conceptual frameworks has prevented a majoritarian or minoritarian discourse. Our neighbor, Canada, uses the “mosiac” concept, France used to avoid racial categories for many decades in order to privilege the concept of a nin-racial citizen. None of these are perefct, but are worth a discussion.
1
Most minorities are classified as minorities only because we lump all white Americans whose ancestors did not speak Spanish into the catchall “non-Hispanic white” category. Both Cameron Diaz and I have blond hair and blue eyes, but she counts as a minority because she is Hispanic while I count as a majority because I am a Manx American.
Hispanic Americans have been America’s second largest ethnic group for decades. For example, they already outnumber Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Anglo American, Scotch-Irish Americans, French Americans, Dutch Americans Swedish Americans, Polish Americans, etc. and will probably surpass German Americans to become the nation’s largest ethnic groups by there 2020 census. But Hispanics count as minorities while he Manx American population is so small people think we are a breed of short-tailed felines.
5
As long as the minority you are in is the top 10% or 5% in wealth, I do not think the other identified segments have much impact on you. I like the image with the story. I doubt most readers understood it. As Jerry Seinfeld said: “Look to the cookie, Elaine! Look to the cookie!”
2
I don't know what people really expect to improve with
whatever demographic changes take place in the next
century.
Do you think Asians, soon to be more populous than
African Americans, will suddenly accept guilt for what happened before 1965 ?
Do you think Hispanics will want to share more of the
economic pie with African Americans ?
The Poor will still be poor and treated with utter disdain.
Hispanics may wonder why the Census insists that they are
Hispanic though they are fourth generation Americans and don't speak Spanish.
As for those who make their sexual preferences/fluidity
their identity - they will still be less than 3 % of the Population.
As for Whites being 61 % of the Population, that number is
incorrect, drive around American and get back to me on what
you see once you get off the Interstate and out of the Cities.
Meanwhile the Rich will get even Richer and the only colour they care about is the colour green - as that is the colour of
money.
9
After 42 years, almost 43yrs, of being in the United States as a physician in the affluent state of Connecticut, often, I’m addressed as “you people” by the most liberal whites. I know what it feels to be a minority. My answer is simple “don’t worry about the Freudian slips and openly racist intended comments but wait until 2050 including justice Clarence thomas’s Wife.”
1
I cannot understand why it is not politically correct to say " colored people" but " people of color" is acceptable.
8
@Aaron Adams, Whites could be called people of non-color.
2
@Aaron Adams thank you! I find this term incredibly grating. It exemplifies the worst of identity politics, lumping together a Honduran migrant farm laborer, an African American physician, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant working in IT and so on. These groups have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and these headlines I gave tell you close to nothing about any individual in these broad categories. Your ethnic background and skin color certainly plays a part in your life, but skin color is only one of myriad factors that make up your identity, or that tell us anything about who you are, or what your life is like. To lump things together in this one term is offensive, nonsensical, illogical and denigrating to all people.
3
@Aaron Adams
How do address Sicilians with dark skin?
Colored people?
Or just Italian?
How about calling everyone “people?”
5
Don't you mean straight, white and christian?
2
What an absolutely silly take. Do you really think that white people get such a rise out of the semantics of labeling a broad swath of the population as minorities that we would create and preserve a system that continuously affords these groups preferential treatment? From affirmative action to special small business loans or first dibs at government contracts being a minority means not having to compete against the majority of the population. And while being a minority may comprise some difficulties, minority groups have consistently opposed being judged on the merits of what they've overcome rather than being given preferential treatment simply because of their "minority" status.
Consider affirmative action. The thinking on it is that being nonwhite means you're more likely to be poor and will be from a worse school. Yet minority groups (minus Asians) consistently oppose proposals to base AA on poverty and instead prefer to be singled out as somehow different (and in need of special treatment) when compared to the majority population.
Why in the world would the majority ever support a system that enfranchises legal discrimination against them and that is little more than a non-stop screed about "white privilege" and "the patriarchy." From the NFL's Rooney Rule to California's new law requiring corporate boards to have a minimum number of women on it, it's the various "minority" groups who insist upon the existence of a "minority" to advocate for different set of rules.
9
@JP
Thank you for the excellent post.
1
What is difficult to understand is that we're not supposed to point out someone's race but at the same time it is all about their race. So which one is it? Can't have it both ways.
6
"Is Being a ‘Minority’ Really Just a Matter of Numbers?"
If Minority is not defined by numbers, then the concept is vacuous and shouldn't be used.
In fact, the notion should be abandoned anyway since the Constitution guarantees Due Process to all citizens equally, there's no need to identify anybody as minority or majority.
4
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, itself founded by Pilgrims of a minority Protestant sect shunned by the Anglican majority back in England, members of other Protestant religions were so unwelcome they actually chased Roger Williams out of the colony on religious grounds (he stopped running a few miles south and founded Rhode Island). it seems we will seize on the slimmest of straws to reject and discriminate, rather than follow the sensible advice of Dr. King.
1
Growing up in Woodhaven, Queens, NY in the 50s I was the only Jewish kid in my Kindergarten and 1st grade classes.
Back in those days when the Christian kids went to catechism on Wednesday afternoons, I was the only one left in the classroom.
So although I was white, as were all my classmates, I was the minority.
11
not so lng ago, Jews were considred a racial minority, but it was just an easy way to dismiss people who weren't Christian. when Jews began to be considered white, along with people like Italians and Poles, prejudice did not stop because everybody wants to feel superior to somebody else. for most of European and American history, Jews were not allowed to own land or to farm, which until the last 125 years or so was the most common way to earn a living. there were lots of other places Jews were prohibited from working in America, which were considered protected white Christian enclaves: banking, insurance, law firms all discrimitated against Jews - even Walt Disney was a famously closed shop even to contractors, in living memory.Jews could not live in certain towns, neighbrhoods, or even buildings, be buried in restrictive cemeteries, and of course, membership in private clubs and honorary societies was closed to Jews as well. most select colleges were closed to Jews, or their numbers severely regulated. in public schools, even in NY, even after the War, Jews had to recite Christian prayers and join in celebrating Christian holidays in songs and pageants. so, prejudice, discrimination, and exclusion is not only limited to the invented notion of"race" but also is very much a matter of religion, or, specifically, non-Christianty. even today, many on the right rail about America being a Christian nation. to them, the rest of us are barely tolerated guests.
5
@Little Lucky Yes! Back in the 1950s in Chicago, I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and being white and Christian, I was the only pupil left in school on the High Holidays. And when the other kids got out early to go to Hebrew School, I didn't. My friends got Christmas presents AND Hanukkah presents. In high school, a lot of social activity revolved around temple. So although I was "majority" I was minority . Being minority had some social disadvantages especially for kids. I don't know what it is like for kids today but a celebration of differences has to be good.
4
The term "minority" also implies a mathematical, zero-sum "certainty." If one is increasing, the other must be decreasing. What if we saw our collective future not as a win-lose, but as a win-win proposition? Economics teaches that widening economic strength is a boon to all stemming from the fact that the pie is not static, but enlarging. If we were capable of re-imagining the rise of others as a blessing as economics does, then there would be less fear, anger, and violence.
2
I'm pretty sure that straight people are a majority in every country, and straight white people are probably a majority in Canada, Australia, the Scandinavian and most European countries. Also, if you define Asians and Hispanics as white, then straight white people are the majority in Asia and Latin America, as well. So, why single out (negatively) the US for having a large percentage of straight white citizens?
11
White and straight is probably already not a majority. But it will be a plurality for quite a while.
2
@bobw. You need a severe lesson in higher mathematics for you, third grade arithmetic. Fantasy and delusion is not helpful in reality.
1
There is a favorite cookie in this photo by Derek Brahney and it probably comes with a name. Not all of our counting abilities are equal, but it was my understanding at school in Europe that one of the assets that made America unique and different was 'The Melting Pot', and it seems to be rusty these days and rarely used.
A scientist from Boston on a morning stroll informed this reader that before The Native Indian, America had been long populated by the Indigenous People, which is probably what an elderly neighbor sliding into a different reality, expresses as her affinity for 'The Bush People', not to be confused with the presidential family.
On my way to attend a funeral in Jamaica, N.Y. for a young lioness 'Nala', the driver told me that he was color-blind. This is unfortunate because this is a rare eye disease which afflicts few men only, and if a friend of yours is assaulted, you want to be able to identify her and give an accurate profile to the police.
Well, we certainly have a way of complicating matters. But it was Quentin Crisp, the author of the Naked Civil Servant, and a flamboyant transvestite who looked into the camera and announced 'It is much easier to belong to the Majority'.
'Roma' is a favorite movie testimony for this viewer because Cleo reminds me of Catalina in Spain, and they are child carers, sometimes forgotten late in life, and the rest is in the Hands of God, as an African and Irish friend tell me at the end of a hard day's work.
2
"This is how 'minority' becomes a designation of passenger status in a car somebody else is always driving."
I like this statement. White people regardless of gender or sexual preference are always in the driver's seat. White women and white LGBTQ may have their issues with straight white males but they always bring full white supremacist power to their dealings with black people.
I have never liked any term involving the words "of color," as in woman of color, people of color, man of color, etc. What do those words even mean? Be clear - are you white, black, of mixed race, Asian, Latinx (not a race), etc.
2
I'm totally against those people who insist that the population is made up of minorities. There are only shades of skin with no correlation to competence as far as I can see. And, the research backs me up, irrespective of what wingnut talk radio hosts try to sell.
I would be much happier with a dark skinned competent person working for me than an extremely light skinned incompetent person doing (or not doing) the same job.
9
Referring to a person as a minority makes no sense. 1 person out of millions is always a minority.
3
LOL- am white and straight and was definitely a minority as a protestant kid on a Street dominatedby large Irish Catholic families with multiple sons in Philly back in the day. That all changed after I beat up the oldest, toughest one of them once I grew to his size. But, as a little kid, I definitely got bullied over religion-and that has stuck with me to this day.
Vatican 2 helped, too.
LOL again, once we all made peace, you always knew if a girl in an Irish family liked you because an older brother, or in one case her Dad, would take me aside and ask”...Lefty, have you have ever considered conversion?....”
3
The criteria for defining minorities is changing from social background to wealth. At some point in history even as relatively recent as our country’s three centuries, most majorities can be divided into different minorities, and they still can be. It’s certainly amusing to see that one of the films at the 2019 Oscar Awards, “The Green Book,” is based on an African American tourist book during our nation’s racial segregation period.
For a long time, in the early 1900s, the “Social Register” in most American large cities was a Directory of a small number of affluent, college educated, and socially exclusive class of White Anglo Saxon Protestant families. The “Register” was not a tour book, but it certainly indicated where the members in one city could find one another around the country for social and business meetings. Less significant today, it’s not mentioned any longer in the Times social pages of marriages. But if race, religion, an Ivy League education, and ethnicity no longer matter in the Times social pages, gender no longer matters in one’s obituary. The class distinctions today remain wealth and professional status. Forgive my alliteration, but mass markets have become the majorities that mostly, socially, matter.
4
"Minority" has become a handy cudgel that some use to beat up on various institutions or ideas, for good or bad right or wrong. There is truthful application of unfair subordination via a claim of wrong done toward a minority and there is advantage taking and philosophical cheating. It's complex and a thinker has to be careful what they are listening to and understand motivations.
One very interesting idea that rings true to my rather severe critical values, that applies across the board and is unassailable in philosophy and as such makes a nice ground level for policy or argument is, the fundamental minority is The Individual.
I found that a clarifying statement, and very valuable as I think through the mass of outrages and attacks that fog many instances of minority status advocacy or claims. And in support of that statement there exists a wide ranging body of well thought out Western Enlightenment philosophy. You can cut through a ton of bull keeping in mind that the ultimate minority is the individual, as every group of people associated by some interest or characteristic is at base level individuals.
5
The racial composition of this or that neighborhood is not the determining factor. Obviously, Asians are not a minority in, say, Chinatown.
The holistic -- nationwide -- composition is what defines overall minority/majority status. In the USA, according to the last (2010) census, whites represented 61% of the population and blacks 13%. That is pretty clear-cut.
The correlation between numerical minority status and socio-economic oppression is not airtight. Women, for example, make up 51% of the population.
4
Gosh. How about this? Judge people as individuals and leave the mindless intersectionality theory to the Academics.
18
Whites make up around 15% of the world's population. So if there is a global minority today it most certainly is being white.
21
Numbers, numbers, numbers. With 128 openings in men's and women's play at Wimbledom's tennis tournament, and with about 7.7 billion people in the world, how many standard deviations to the right of the mean must one be to challenge there?
So,
[(128 positions)/3,850,000,000 potential global players] = 0.00000003325; which I think represents a level of play well in excess of 4 standard deviations to the right of the mean.
Of course, we're all just people, and we all usually represent a minority interest. But, as for my tennis game, and all of its individuality, I'd best develop alternative sources of ROIs.
[JJL Friday, Jan., 25, 2019 2:20 pm Greenville NC]
America has been an exclusive, "majority" oriented nation since its inception. There was considerable sentiment among the Founding Fathers to restrict immigration to those emigrants from Northern Europe whom we would call today English and German. WASPS...
2
And all of us are sitting on Indian land, and we weren't invited.
10
@Salvadora
It's not Indian land, because it was conquered from the tribes by the United States and its predecessor British colonies.
Until post-1945, with the United Nations charter, the right of conquest was always recognized in international law. It required conquest, and an indefinite period of successfully maintaining possession.
Indeed, it is the best title of all. So we are sitting on former Indian land, not Indian land.
2
Wesley Morris, you at least have accomplished a Times columnist first, the mention of Professor Kenneth Prewitt, former USCB Director and author of this book.
"What Is "Your" Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans"
Otherwise known to me as the book that no New York Times columnist will admit ever to having read.
You open with this line: "Classifying things is tricky" and that is in part what Prewitt's book is about. In it he explains that the USCB still uses a system of classifying us Americans using terms and concepts all the fatal inventions of racists. In Ch. 11, he proposes a different way of classifying us, by SES data and by ending use of color, "race", ethnicity.
But here in the Times and in comment land, USCB nomenclature and thinking rule. Fine example: Lisa Lerer yesterday on The Kamala Harris Factor. After noting that Harris mother is Tamil Indian, Harris with a fractionally African line of descent becomes wholly African American.
Let's move on and do as Prewitt recommends, use SES and define minorities in SES terms.
And here in Times columns try ethnicity, lines of descent, and social class, at least in a paragraph or two.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
3
As a math geek, I see nothing wrong with the concept that if no group makes up over 50% of a population, all groups are minorities. The question becomes, who defines the population?
4
Identity politics will ultimately tear this nation apart. This intense, continuous focus on race is nothing but divisive.
26
@Derry
Identity politics have ruled this country from its beginning. It is folly to pretend they are a relatively recent phenomenon.
2
@Derry
By the way, I've never seen any of these prognosticators tell us when "non-Hispanic whites" (as they always put it) are expected to have a minority of the money in the US.
My guess is that it will be a lot later than 2044!
1
@Derry
So who should relent? Who is responsible for stopping the hate? If you propose it's on both sides, how do you propose the group being attacked do that? Just put up with it??
1
It gets tiresome. Being politically correct as vocabulary and nomenclature are constantly changing is impossible. Does a person who's ancestors came from Africa want to be called black or African American, or both? They used to be called colored. Now we have a group called People of Color. Is white not considered a color? In my art classes, we learned it's a composite of all the other colors. LGBTQ strangely includes people who like the same sex, people who identify as the opposite sex, people who physically alter their sex through drugs and surgery. Who says all these people are alike? I have white, Native American, and black ancestry from 200 years ago. I see no reason to promote our differences by identifying as a group, either minority or majority. It's a false construct and serves only to divide us.
32
You write: 'I’ve never heard a white person ... say, “I’m a majority.” Not unless a righteous sense of persecution is afoot'. In the spaces in which I work (the academic fields of diversity and inclusion), I've been fortunate to hear this often. In the culturally diverse rural and urban spaces I've lived, the same. In some remote and isolated places of Australia, no. Then I share your experience where a diatribe of ignorant racism (and misogyny, religious, spatial, socio-economic and other types of cultural 'ugliness' will flow forth). I've found that people often don't see their words as 'ugly'. They are often just explaining their lived experience of what they understand as disadvantage. But they are sometimes missing an understanding that many more people have experienced much deeper, more complicated forms of disadvantage, which is often generational. Perhaps there are crossovers here to the situation in other parts of the world.
2
As a man, I have always considered myself a member of the minority.
5
How do?
This is cheaply argued.
Rightly or wrongly, it's true that some white, male people are questioning the conceptual basis for what they perceive as unfair policies which harm their life chances. They are joined by all sorts of other people.
But if the author thinks that these arguments hang on the meaning of the word, "minority," he hasn't done his homework. The meaning and application of the concept, "minority," has almost no relevance to the resolution of complaints about racial and gender preference programs in our society.
This article is just an annoying red herring.
10
What never ceases to amaze me is how the people who says we should all be the same are the first ones to point out our differences. Somehow in this bizzaro world it’s considered racist to not care what color someone is (a politician, for example). If I say I don’t care whether we nominate a man, woman, white, black or other, that’s somehow judgmental.
It’s quite interesting that the left completely disagrees with Martin Luther King, Jr.s hope for his children.
21
As I read about Louis Wirth's study in this article I was reminded of an old girlfriend. She was pretty talented: an attorney at-bar, a lobbyist at the State legislature, and the winner of the Pulitzer prize for her articles about organized crime in the automotive industry. Anyway, she liked to talk about the M.A.W.G., an acronym that stood for the Middle Aged White Guys. That about summed it up. In the majority were the M.A.W.G., and everyone else was in the minority.
I was so taken with this idea that a few years later I decided to write a dystopian science fiction novel called 'The MORKLAN Report'. In the story they operated something called the Total Information Awareness and Control program (T.I.A.C.), a rather seedy attempt to control information on the internet. From the novel: "This program was created by a highly secret and well funded organization known as the MAWG, a geopolitical group attempting social and economic control of the American Midwest. It is broadly based upon the thought control regimes created by the Chinese Mao Tse-tung communists during the 1950’s, and the Soviet Union during the 1960’s."
Like Louis Wirth’s study my novel seems a little musty now, but I may have had my finger on the pulse of the problem.
1
At some point in the early 1980's my family was asked "What are YOU doing in the 'hood". Our family, starting with grandparents, had lived in our near east side Detroit neighborhood for decades.
It had decayed into what was essentially a war zone. All we wanted to do was live in that modest lower middle class neighborhood in peace. We finally moved out after an incident when our phone lines were cut one evening - thankfully we had firearms in the house. One could almost hear the cties of "Look! White flight!"
My parents moved to a peaceful mostly white suburb. BTW, there was no inter-generational real estate wealth.
Poles evolving into whiteness... and on and on it goes, the liberal and progressive perpetual motion machine of guilt and victimhood.
14
Please, do away with the term minority. Really tired of it.
13
There are certain distinct minority groups that rate as vastly superior in wealth, intelligence, influence, Nobel prizes (you know who I'm talking about) so the term minority can have very positive connotations as well as negative. Many people are way too elitist to want to be considered as part of the "majority" such as opera goers. And then there's the "moral majority"- I certainly wouldn't want any part of that majority.
5
Then there’s the phrase “model minority,” which leads to an inference that without the modifier, minorities are by default inherently less than model. Of course most of the white, native born majority is not that kind of model either, as Trump’s base has amply proved.
5
@Julie Zuckman’s. Then there's that oxymoronic term 'majority minority'.
3
"In America, it is now used interchangeably with “person of color” and “nonwhite...”
Well, no, actually. Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are minorities in most accepted uses of the term -- though Latinx people are only if they're described (that is, describe themselves) as "non-white Hispanic". Gay and trans people, disabled people, and a few other categories I may be missing, are also widely considered significant minorities. Which means this is already a majority minority country, or at least, very close to one.
There's more to this than race. There's also less to this than meets the eye, since most of these categories are based on civil rights protection, and used either to tally up diversity goals or examine voting patterns -- all of which are useful, but few of which are of metaphysical import. That, in turn, means that most conversations about minorities quickly become incoherent. I'm afraid Mr. Morris' does, too.
8
“Minority” as a demographic category - contrasted to “majority” - is simply a matter of numbers. But as a sociological category, “minority” should be contrasted to “dominant” in identifying group membership, as minority is a matter of a group’s power and status in society, not simply its number of members. Yes, it is confusing, but as a term of art this is how minority is used in the social sciences, until a more suitable term catches on.
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So, what are we going to do about ending the oppression by the right-handed majority of the left-handed minority?
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These are important ideas, central to understanding our current era and the insecurities that underlie it.
The “American Ideal,” has always been aspirational. On the one hand, we at least pay lip service to the ideal of all men being created equal, which taken literally already excludes half the population. The often ugly underside is that we’ve never, ever, been completely equal. The lived reality has always been less than perfect. Yet what has been amazing about the American dream has always been its power to assimilate. Living in America eventually makes you an American. Our culture is so fundamentally optimistic and overpowering that few groups who have come here have completely preserved their culture (at least to the degree that their members don’t see themselves as Americans first and whatever second) past the second or third generation. America has been an assimilation machine so, with some exceptions, we mostly don’t live in rigid cultural enclaves.
Skin color, on the other hand, has always been a somewhat different story, and it’s a shameful reality that our President uses it to create support for his agenda. African slaves have been the most egregious example of this, but skin-color bias has created difficulties for other immigrants throughout our history.
Ideally, and I recognize this is a difficult issue, we ought to all see ourselves as part of a whole: Americans. “Created equal” ought to mean everyone is not only welcome at the party, but would also feel so.
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When it comes to ruling the roost it isn't numbers that count. In a democracy that should be the case. Meanwhile, our government is more like the title of a Molly Goldberg play of the 1950's, "Majority of One."
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"Classifying things is tricky," but how does verbosity make classification any easier?
You spend a great deal of space meandering from Oscar picks, to Italians and Poles, to "Black people as the numerical minority in their majority-White spaces," and so much more, only to lead to many confusing theses.
For instance, in speaking of the term "minority" you insist that "in America, it is now used interchangeably with 'person of color' and 'nonwhite.'" Maybe these are the limitations which you place on that problematic term, but I doubt most light skinned American women and most members of religious minorities in America who are also light skinned would agree with you.
You travel far and wide here only to wind up making what has long been recognized to be an inherent problem in using the term "minority" even more opaque.
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@Robert B
Aren't males a minority? The last I heard, women outnumber men.
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@Charlesbalpha
Yes we are.
The term "majority minority" is an oxymoron.
But maybe for that reason, it makes me smile. And even though it makes no sense, self-contradictory, what it is meant to convey is a good thing. Houston is a good example, and I look forward to when the whole country catches up to Houston in that regard.
The word I do find offensive is "biracial." That sounds like it assumes there are only two races. Much better, and more commonly used in Houston: "two or more." That one makes me smile too.
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Thank you for this article. I particularly liked the part where you describe Italians as being eventually included in the white count. That is a truth I know from personal experience, but has been relegated to the dust bin of contemporary identity hysteria.
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In his choice of issues to address, and his take on them, Mr Morris is always a pleasure to read.
But I think the issue her addressed here can actually be viewed in an opposite formation.
"Minority" is now a badge of honor. Despite our fewer numbers, we were able to triumph -- that is often the subtextual message.
So Black Panther is, as a superhero movie, nominated as Best Picture, and given a berth previously denied to the genre because, in part, it is a blockbuster superhero movie peopled by minorities. (That it received virtually no other nominations is, of course, because at the end of the day it really is just a superhero movie.) "Minorities" are thus proud of the achievement, while the "majority" can show how unbiased they are.
"Minority" is more than a badge; it can also be a shield. Enrollment in LAUSD schools is something like 85% "minority." Well, then, at what level does that enrollment constitute a "majority?" We don't often hear of the Latino "majority" in LA schools. The diction may not be purposely Orwellian, but maybe there are advantages in our current political climate to being perceived as a minority.
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In my snottier days, I used to insist that everyone is a minority, because after all, you are just one person against the backdrop of a massive global community.
Counting people with similar characteristics as force multipliers misunderstands the concept of SIMILARITY at a basic level. If I want a new car, I can't count on the support of every other person who looks like me. Similarity does not equal unity of purpose or function.
It's also worth pointing out that people have a large and undefined set of characteristics, most of which are unmeasurable. So actually defining who is more similar to whom is just a game, leaning heavily on biases, blindspots, and assumptions.
"Who are your people" is an emergent variable based on your unique set of shared and unshared experiences. It's not an observable quantity.
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Thank you for your take on this topic, and the lack of flamethrowing herein.
Some distinctions worth clarifying of course are:
- there is a difference between the 'minority groups' in a population, and the power of any particular group, as some minority groups are powerful, indeed
- there is a difference between the societal/historical forces that compel members of a group to act on their own like a school of fish, headed in the same direction (e.g., the Afrikaaners in South Africa), and the creation of a category that in itself is simplistic (I think of the category 'Asian' for example - an utterly nonsensical construct)
- folks who grow up in a monocultural universe have difficulty understanding bicultural (or more) perspectives
- and, some groups of people just crave to dominate and control
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Thank you Mr. Morris. You always hit it out of the park. When are we gonna learn that we're all just people. Same basic needs and hopes and dreams. Food Love Shelter Friends Family Fulfilling and adequate paying Work.
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You can be white and straight and still be a minority. I am.
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