'Majority Minority' America? Don't Bet on It
By: John J. Miller (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Wonder Land: Does politics have a larger purpose than dividing power by multiple categories? Images: Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly By John J. Miller Feb. 5, 2021 1:26 pm ET
Remember the "coalition of the ascendant"? National Journal's Ronald Brownstein invented the phrase in 2008 to describe the "growing elements of American society" that had elected Barack Obama and given Democrats commanding majorities in both congressional houses: "young people, Hispanics and other minorities, and white upper-middle-class professionals."
Republican successes in 2010, 2014 and 2016 called the coalition's durability into question. But the 2020 election—Joe Biden's victory notwithstanding—may provide the greatest reason to doubt it. Compared with 2016, President Trump and congressional Republicans improved their standing significantly among Hispanic voters and made smaller strides among other groups, such as Asian-Americans, blacks and Muslims.
"The majority minority narrative is wrong," says sociologist Richard Alba, referring to the idea that nonwhite Americans will outnumber whites by 2050 or so. In his recent book, "The Great Demographic Illusion," Mr. Alba, 78, shows that many "nonwhites" are assimilating into an American mainstream, much as white ethnic groups did before them. Government statistics have failed to account for this complex reality, partly for political reasons, and in doing so they've encouraged sloppy thinking about the country's future.
"The surge in mixing across ethno-racial lines is one of the most important and unheralded developments of our time," says Mr. Alba, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He rattles off facts and figures: Today, more than 10% of U.S.-born babies have one parent who is nonwhite or Hispanic and one who is white and not Hispanic. That proportion is larger than the number of babies born to two Asian parents and not far behind the number of babies born to two black parents. "We're entering a new era of mixed backgrounds," Mr. Alba says.
It reminds him of the postwar era, when the members of white ethnic groups began to make major socioeconomic gains as well as to intermarry. Mr. Alba, who grew up in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx, is himself a product of this amalgamation: His father was Sicilian, and his mother was Irish. As for his politics, Mr. Alba describes himself as "a liberal with centrist leanings." He voted for Mr. Biden and favors higher taxes and "more redistribution."
When Mr. Alba entered graduate school at Columbia in 1969, leading scholars in the new field of ethnic studies were arguing that ethnic differences had become a permanent feature of American life. “The point about the melting pot is that it did not happen,” Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Nathan Glazer wrote in “Beyond the Melting Pot,” their celebrated 1963 study of race and ethnicity in New York City. They argued that you could take Italians out of Italy but you couldn’t take Italy out of Italians—and that Italian-Americans were creating “a new social form” that would endure in the U.S. Michael Novak captured the idea in the title of his 1972 book, “The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics.”
Mr. Alba expected that his own research would reinforce this conventional wisdom. “I thought I was going to discover how important ethnicity is,” he says. “But as I rummaged through the data, the story that came to me was a story of mixing—the main story was about assimilation.” Americans were marrying each other across ethnic lines and embracing the national culture. The melting pot was churning.
His 1985 book, “Italian Americans: Into the Twilight of Ethnicity,” showed that by a series of measurements involving education, occupation, socioeconomics and more, Americans of Italian ancestry had achieved virtual parity with other whites. Discrimination against them had largely faded away, and they were fully accepted in the mainstream. In another book, “Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America” (1990), Mr. Alba argued that ethnic ties remained important on a symbolic level but didn’t determine the shape of everyday life for descendants of the Ellis Island generation of immigrants, many of whom came from Eastern and Southern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
One of Mr. Alba’s favorite words is “assimilation,” although it has fallen from favor among many of his academic colleagues. “It’s a tricky word, still very misunderstood,” he says. “For some people, it implies the extinction of origins and the replacement of one culture by another.” That’s not how he understands the term, and he says that’s not how assimilation actually worked in the years after World War II. “New religious identities—Catholic and Jewish—entered a mainstream that previously had identified itself as Protestant,” he says. “The mainstream expanded and diversified and even started referring to itself as ‘Judeo-Christian.’ ” As new ingredients entered the melting pot, they enriched the recipe and didn’t spoil it.
Something similar is happening today. “The rising numbers of people from mixed ethno-racial backgrounds is a sign of growing integration into the mainstream by members of minority groups, especially those of recent immigrant origin, such as Asians and Hispanics,” Mr. Alba says. He foresees a future in which many Americans think of themselves as outside the boxes of traditional Census categories—not as members of discrete racial or ethnic groups but rather as multiracial or multicultural Americans. Mr. Alba cites the example of Tiger Woods, who once described himself as “Cablanasian,” a portmanteau of Caucasian, black and Asian.
Government projections have obscured this picture by creating the false impression that many immigrants are failing to assimilate, Mr. Alba says. Starting in the late 1990s, forecasts about America’s majority-minority future seemed to describe a contest of unmeltable groups. In 2000, for example, the Census Bureau estimated that by 2059 nonwhites would outnumber whites in the U.S. population. A few years later, it moved the date up, to 2043.
Mr. Alba more or less accepted these predictions at first. But about five years ago he spotted an error in how the Census Bureau classifies people by race and ethnicity: “The data are understating the degree to which people were coming from mixed family backgrounds.”
The difficulty started as the federal government prepared for the 2000 census and sought to recognize the small but growing number of multiracial Americans. The Census Bureau decided to let people like Mr. Woods check off more than one racial box on their forms. Leaders of liberal civil-rights groups lobbied against the change. They feared a recognition of multiracialism would dilute the numerical strength of minorities and make it harder to enforce antidiscrimination laws.
The Office of Management and Budget devised an ironic solution to the dilemma. The OMB, whose responsibilities include maintaining the consistency of data across federal departments and agencies, revived a version of the old “one drop” rule from the Jim Crow era, according to which a single African ancestor made a person entirely black. The OMB decided that Americans who designated themselves as white and something else on their Census forms would be classified as nonwhite.
“If you’re changing white to nonwhite, there’s a problem,” Mr. Alba says. As an example, he cites survey findings that Americans of mixed Asian and white descent tend to have more contact with white relatives than with Asian ones (in part because Asian relatives are likelier to live abroad). Moreover, 62% of Asian-whites say they feel “very” accepted by whites, compared with 47% who say the same about Asians. When they marry, 72% of Asian-white women and 64% of Asian-white men take white spouses. The government nevertheless counts them and their progeny as nonwhite.
“We’ve allowed ideas about race to loom very large,” says Mr. Alba. “We tend to believe that people can have only one ethno-racial background and that this identity is fixed when in fact it can be quite fluid.” This in turn has corrupted political thinking, especially among Democrats who accept the demography-is-destiny theory—the notion that they need only bide their time and minority voters will put them into a position of unassailable political power.
John Judis and Ruy Texeira advanced the idea in their 2002 book, “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” which also argued that millennials and college-educated whites would join the partnership. Although this roughly describes the coalition that elected both Messrs. Obama and Biden to the presidency, the thesis has “just been falsified by the recent election,” Mr. Alba says.
“It’s true that most Hispanics vote for Democrats,” he says, “but the notion that you can just count on the behavior of this aggregate to remain the same as its numbers increase in the future is really preposterous. People assume that the ethno-racial categories that we use today will be the same ones that we use in the future.” He anticipates that by the 2050s, one-third of babies with white ancestry also will have Hispanic or nonwhite ancestry. The idea of who belongs to a racial majority or minority will be completely scrambled.
One possible response is to quit counting race and ethnicity, as proposed by Kenneth Prewitt, who directed the Census Bureau from 1998-2001. Mr. Alba rejects this idea, believing that flawed information is better than no information if the U.S. hopes to chart its progress as a land of opportunity for all people—especially blacks, who haven’t entered the American mainstream with the same success as other groups. Yet he hopes the necessity for such counting will one day fade: “Perhaps it could happen later this century.”
What America needs now, Mr. Alba believes, is “a new narrative.” The current one is all about conflict and collision between groups and “has polarizing political consequences.” A better one would be “less threatening to the white majority and at the same time would allow minorities to become a part of the mainstream ‘us’ without abandoning their distinctiveness.”
Maybe this new narrative could hark back to an old American idea, put forward by Walt Whitman in 1855: “I contain multitudes.”
Mr. Miller is director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College.
Tags
Who is online
42 visitors
“It’s true that most Hispanics vote for Democrats,” he says, “but the notion that you can just count on the behavior of this aggregate to remain the same as its numbers increase in the future is really preposterous."
I think Mr Alba, self described Liberal, is 100% correct on all counts. Hispanics are at the stage Italians were at a century ago. They will assimilate just like the Italians did and we won't be able to predict how they will vote. There will only be one small group for democrats to pander to.
We will all be mainstream.
Please read the review before commenting.
Okay Vic, what "small group" with that be? And how come?
The other day I was watching C-Span. The guest was Jim Clyburn and he was recounting the DNC primary when Joe Biden was just about done after finishing dismally in the first few state primaries ( Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada). As the South Carolina primary approached he was at a funeral for a close friend. Some Black community leaders were in attendance. One asked him who he was voting for? He said Joe Biden. She responded with "that's all I need to know." Clyburn told the other - a community organizer, that we need to back Biden.
It seems that a group of voters marched off and voted upon the command of Jim Clyburn:
"Biden had won the key endorsement of South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn , the third-highest ranking Democrat in the House and one of the most powerful forces in South Carolina politics. His nod did not go unnoticed by voters: 47% of voters said the endorsement was important to them, compared to 38% who said it was not."
Okay, I saw the 'moment' live. It was politics (at its best). Yet, that does not answer the larger question: What group would that be? How come?
The very group that voted as Jim Clyburn instructed them to vote.
How come?
I resent that mind-numbing 'comeback' which is the same as it initially. Of course, people, Black Americans included, can take account of a validation from a credible sponsor. Its called an endorsement. And the better endorsements are coveted.
Vic, it is naive to try to spin that into a defeat. It simply won't work.
Okay, so what happens when you won't answer the question? (Rhetorical)
"Majority-minority" has nothing to do with politics, or assimilation.
It refers to the ethnic makeup of the US population according to the US census.
The only way "mixed" populations could forestall this eventuality is if mixed race people self identify as white. That is usually not the case.
What is the distinction between a non-Hispanic Black and a Hispanic Black? The distinction isn't racial since they are both Black. Will a Hispanic Black immigrant be a part of the Hispanic population or a part of the Black population? Hispanic Black immigrants becoming part of the Black population will change the Black population and influence the cultural heritage of the Black population.
The distinction between non-Hispanic White and Hispanic White isn't racial either since they are both White.
People in the United States self-identify as to race. There are as many white people as say they are white. Maybe if we hadnt had the "one drop rule" for so long there would be more mixed race people today willing to identify as white.
But someone that self identifies as a Hispanic White is claiming they are White. They are self identifying as White with Hispanic heritage (or Hispanic ethnicity).
The same is true for a Hispanic Black. They are self identifying as Black with Hispanic heritage (or Hispanic ethnicity).
I understand that.
The issue here is some as it appears: Hispanic Whites are identifying as ethnic Hispanic with white racial features. Hispanic Blacks are identifying as ethnic Hispanic with black racial features. Neither in itself is a problem.
Problems arise when Hispanic-Whites do not choose to identify (on forms and official documents) as propping up (inflating) the Euro-centric number of Whites in the United States (for political and statistical reasons). That is, Hispanic-Americans are own their own politically, until such occasion when their mere 'count' can be used to advantage the larger European white society.
As for the Hispanic-Blacks, well, these people 'counts' are purely for statistical purposes,
Then you understand that the elitist narrative of a minority-majority is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors. We can achieve the same thing by hyphenating the entire population. But that would be nothing more than segregation by hyphen.
Which means the Hispanic population fails to assimilate and align with mainstream socio-political and socio-economic attitudes. That lack of assimilation becomes a point of conflict.
You are missing the point. If the designation of a "majority-minority" USA is so meaningless, why have certain whites been terrified of the prospect for years? The spread of white nationalism this century is directly related to the belief that whites are becoming a minority group in America.
No, it does not mean that at all. As Whites can use the constructor racially White no matter any descriptors.
What it means is they simply don't plan and wish their racial-ethnic mixes to be manipulated to bolster nefarious-lending politics and policies. As you may know, politics is not clinical, but passionate.
Is that what it is? Oh I thought it was progressives doing anything to make whites a minority. I have bad news for them. It isn't happening.
The claim is that the minorities will become the majority. That's a narrative that feeds attitudes of grievance and a promise of justice (whatever that means) for minority groups. The narrative that minorities will become the majority isn't based upon rational political choices but, rather, upon irrational political desires. The narrative of a minority majority does not and was never intended to unify the country. Or intended establish anything like equity or equality, for that matter.
The fear provoked by the minority majority narrative is that politicians will govern irrationally. The concept of justice is being defined as punishment for a rewritten (and not particularly accurate) history blaming carefully chosen scapegoats from the past. Only the academic elite can change history; the descendants of carefully chosen dead scapegoats cannot change that history and must be punished. The intent is explicit, punish people for the sin of ancestry.
As can Blacks. Hispanic Blacks, Asian Blacks, Indian Blacks, and African Blacks are all Black. But Black immigrants do not share the very American mainstream socio-political and socio-economic attitudes of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
Rep. Ilhan Omar is an immigrant from Somalia. Does Omar align with mainstream attitudes represented by King and Malcom X? Does Ilhan Omar speak for the Black population as did John Lewis? How much influence should Ilhan Omar be allowed to change mainstream attitudes within the Black population of the United States?
Your 'argument' is bogus. The politics of the day in sum are what they are or will be. However, this nuanced discussion you strive to put forward about 'divide and conquer' politics-wise fails. Blacks are unified in general and where it counts there is "stickability." Sure, in life, there has always been exceptions to the norm, to the rule, and those who strive alone.
You are talking about finding a 'hair' to split Blacks apart over. Good luck with that. The days of some conservatives splitting Blacks over skin shade and status in '"the Big house" are long gone. We SEE this tired old tactic for what it is. More importantly, we know it to be impotent. So yes take the 'fraction" of Blacks who strive alone and be satisfied. The rest of us will cooperate to achieve civil rights and equality for everybody we can.
Did you do all this complaining when the whites were the majority for 400 years ?
The White population will remain the majority for the foreseeable future, too. Hispanic White is still white.
What remains to be seen is if North American colonial attitudes will be displaced by South American colonial attitudes. The history of Central and South American colonization is much more brutal than the history of North American colonization.
Denying that diversity is increasing within the Black population won't address the issue. I'm not making a nuanced argument; I'm asking difficult questions that reflect today's reality.
I guess you would know. . . . Please, proceed. We'll see how far you get with this kind of "diversity."
Therein lies the rub. Hispanic-Whites remember their historical treatment at the hands of North American Conservatives. It is some conservatives who do not see people properly until you are forced to do so! Many Hispanic-Whites have been treated like People of Color and thus they have learned the lessons of standing up for equity and equality and not accepting momentary white privilege. That is, though Hispanic Whites are White, they do not think or behave like some conservatives!
I think the inverse is true-if significant change occurs at all. My experience is my Hispanic-Black family members come here to share in our U.S. culture or to 'sat' in several cultures. Is there a conflict - not one that is divisive.
But since you brought it up:
Nerm, would you agree with your own statement if the White population was topic instead, and if you agree with the above statement, is this why some conservatives fear the 11 million white/brown Hispanics in and at the border?
You're absolutely petrified at the thought of becoming a minority . . . which you are
How can they do that if the Census is determined to classify mixed as non-white?
In the United States , people SELF identify as to their race.
As the article points out - the Census Department does the defining. For a few decades progressives have promoted tribalism. They have achieved some success to that end.
Please explain (somebody, anybody, Vic) what the statement above means to you.
Diversity within the Black population is increasing, too. Black immigrants are not part of the mainstream 'us' of the Black population since they do not share a common history or cultural heritage.
How will the Black population bring immigrants into the mainstream without abandoning the distinctiveness of those immigrants?
Here is what I 'hear' in your comment: Will say, black immigrants separate (diverge) themselves from the driving forces of mainstream black political influence through seeking their own political interests and individual outcomes.
My answer: What significant percentages do you have to show that such divergence is working and is proving profitable to conservatism? I know that it occurs, yes, it does. Is it significant, nevertheless?
And still the question remains open:
Please explain (somebody, anybody, Vic) what the statement above means to you.
No, the question is how will the Black population convince Hispanic Black immigrants to align with mainstream political interests?
How will the Black population avoid political polarization within the Black population as diversity increases?
Historically the point of conflict has not been citizenship. The point of conflict has been assimilation; the expectation that new citizens will align themselves with mainstream socio-political and socio-economic attitudes.
Citizenship brings with it permanence. Someone who becomes a citizen but does not assimilate poses a threat to structural norms within society. Removing that threat cannot be accomplished by removing the citizen. The citizen has become a permanent part of the country so the threat to mainstream attitudes cannot be dealt with easily.
What makes you think there is a significant difference in the politics of Black Hispanics and Black Americans, at least in so it can be exploited (by 'The Trump Party.'?
And it does not escape my attention that you 'speak' of this divergence as if it it extant. Subsequently, I disagree, as a Black American living the experience and having personal interest - not just ideological whim.
What does that even mean "assimilation" as forgetting one's background or having it of no consequence? Or, and, what is this "mainstream socio-political and socio-economic attitudes" - White conservativism? Please elaborate clearly.
Your last paragraph suffers greatly from 'internal' problems and thus folds in upon itself.
It means what MLK taught us about judging people on the content of their character not their skin color.
However, some conservatives do see skin color and cloak it as 'situational politics. It's an old tactic. For example: White Male Authority figures used the inability to read and write as a rationale to disallow Blacks their citizenship right to vote - when the solution was simple: Get the "H" out of the way of book-learning and reading and writing would take care of itself.
Another case in point: Some how, guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, or mustering up a poll tax for Blacks to fork over during elections, which it was seen to progressively leave Blacks unable to comfortably pay didn't have a damn thing to do with Black character.
Lastly, when Martin Luther King spoke on character over skin color, he was speaking to Whites about "self-righteousness" - that is, Whites who arrogantly and as a culture placed themselves (and their color, culture, character) as supreme and pure while discounting, diminishing, dumbing-down, and demonizing minorities. Of which, Black Americans was central.
And what exactly did MLK teach some conservatives about character over color since you still hold positions and policies that are disinteresting and disinviting to people of color. I mean, QAnon - really, Vic. If as a new party talking over the old party-y'all have to build in on the sand of a lie and illusion- people of color have suffered from illusions of the past long enough and want no part of it.
Finally, y'all buy guns with some real or imagined bloodlust to kill other Americans with them. Really, people of color as a whole, don't wish to kill anybody-even some conservatives. We want no part of your 'movement.'
No, it's not Conservatives, it's progressives who use race.
Another case in point: Some how, guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar
That was southern democrats of 60-70 years ago. In 2021 minorities vote in record numbers.
Lastly, when Martin Luther King spoke on character over skin color, he was speaking to Whites
He was speaking to all of us. White progressives don't seem to like what he said.
And what exactly did MLK teach some conservatives about character over color since you still hold positions and policies that are disinteresting and disinviting to people of color.
Actually, that is a generalization. I think a lot of Black Americans agree with me.
I mean, QAnon - really,
I don't even know what that is. I'm sure that we have one member who professes to be an expert. You may have mixed him up with others.
Finally, y'all buy guns with some real or imagined bloodlust to kill other Americans with them.
Finally, I don't own a gun, but I can see why people do- especially now that the police have been emasculated.
Certainly nothing you stated there is worth spending any more time on with the exception:
Typical untruthfulness coming from a some conservative type. You have all the means as anybody else, including a 'hot' internet connection, so stop with the . . . untruth. This deceit is transparent to me, us.
lol. You sound like Kevin McCarthy. He pronounces it Q-On
You'll have to forgive him. I don't think he watches CNN either.
Typical toe the line bull patty. Some conservatives writings are actually insulting to intelligence. Just ask some conservatives what they know about BLM or ANTIFA. . . such bull-pattiers.