By the year 2060 the US will no longer have a majority of white citizens according to the US Census Bureau. We will see increase in the Hispanic and Asian poulation. What will this mean to America? What will this mean for politics? Will we see a change in “American values”? Do you think this will be benefit to our society? Does this even matter?
http://www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/summary/np-t5-g.txt
First, I believe it is completely irresponsible to make predictions for 60 years in the future, even if it is the US Census Bureau. But if it was true, then I will quote FDR:
“Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry”.
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govpub/collections/wwii-posters/img/ww1645-49.jpg
As long as the ideals are held, and the constitution is not altered, then the race makeup is irrelevant.
[extreme sarcasm! Not serious!]
What it means is that eventually we’ll see the first hispanic President overthrown in a coup by the first hispanic Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Everyone knows “those people” just don’t have the values that make democracy work.
[/extreme sarcasm! Not serious!]
:rolleyes:
I think it will be positive. America is perceived as a white country, with all the baggage that entails. If the US becomes a truly mixed country, where liberty is the one thing that binds us all, we literally become the world. The UN can just retire, we’ll already serve the purpose of representing the world.
What Brandis said. I would add that hopefully it would mean a more inclusive society; that the “rich old white man” oligarchy will be smashed to bits. I say that even though I’m going to be an old white man when some of this turns.
:wally Oops! Sorry, Brandus with a U !
What does matter is how those “racial” groups are distributed socioeconomically. If “racial” groups cluster in SES, rather than being distributed broadly and all contributing to the stew of middle class and intellectual culture , then we have worse problems than before.
Absolutely nothing.
Unless there is an arguement somewhere that says being white makes you a special kind of American or being non-white makes you a somehow different citizen of the US, then the fact that whites may not be in the majority means squat.
I have no opinion on the question. However this: adaher: “I think it will be positive. America is perceived as a white country, with all the baggage that entails”. I must conclude that you think all that white “baggage” is negative (or else the result wouldn’t be positive). Perceived by whom? What is this “baggage” and why do you think it’s negative? Isn’t that a racist comment, judging something on the colour of skin only? Do you also think other colours are bad, or is it just whites? I’m white, and don’t think that as a particular negative thing in itself, I’m fairly content with the colour of my skin – why do you think I shouldn’t be?
Actually I have this opinion. The racial makeup doesn’t matter much if you succeed in integrating, assimilating, the immigrants to core American values and views. If you choose to pursue a multicultural America it’ll matter a whole deal.
Winston,
“core American values and views” as opposed to “a multicultural America”?
Hmmph. I always thought that a multicultural America was a core American value. It’s what has made America special.
The good thing about the US is, despite some very unfair things (slavery, racism, massacring Indians), we still manage to get along pretty well. It’s amazing, really, given our history.
Racial makeup is not going to hurt American values if it changes. Even if the US eventually switches from English to Spanish, America will still be America. Because it’s this willingness to get along and let people do their own thing.
For example the Indians and Pakistanis who leave together on Devon St. in Chicago may have their issues, but they don’t fight with each other.
As a counter-example, look at Japan. So much of the national identity is caught up in a racial understanding of self. Further, if immigration were to exceed a certain level, I have no doubt that serious damange could be done to the language (most foreigners that move here never really master it).
America is the place where people don’t fight and just do your own thing. You can speak whatever language you want and your still as good as anybody else. The culture/country has its problems, but these are real strengths.
Perhaps so. I’m not American and far from an expert. But I do think you traditionally have a set of American values that all cultures were supposed to acknowledge. The melting pot being one of them. Now it seems many think the pot ideal (:)) is flawed, and that each culture should try to seek to remain distinct and avoid integration at all costs. Whether this is good or bad, is a matter of personal value. But it will matter.
*“multicultural America was a core American value” * is a contradiction in terms when taken to the extreme you seem to insist on. Anyway, from the outside you do seem remarkable multiracial but really not very multicultural. Just a personal observation, mind you.
The melting pot was never an apt analogy; a better one is that of that stock pot you keep on the stove always simmering, always adding more to (think of “Stone Soup”) - the beef in there still tastes like beef, the carrot still like carrot, and a few ingredients just dissolve into the mix entirely - but each ingredient adds something to the mix, a mix that constantly changes flavors subtly as new ingredients are thrown into the pot and get a chance to simmer. Thus of course the flavor changes as the composition changes. But the essence is still that it is a hodgepodge stew.
Yes, there are a set of core values that we’d like to think of as requisite for all of our ingredients to share. Mainly it is an acceptance of representational democracy and a respect for the beliefs of others, along with a belief that everyone should have an fair opportunity to succeed (or to fail) based on merit rather than on group membership. Our members, including those of the majority, sometimes fail to uphold those values. Intolerence exists. Institutional and cultural barriers prevent full participation of some populations from some aspects of American life. We often disagree among ourselves on what consitutes a “fair opportunity”. But the hodgepodge stew continues to simmer.
Winstonsmith, no offense intended. Only pointing out that left wing nuts constantly raise the specter of white imperialism whenever the US feels the need to take military action. A US that looks more like the world than it does today would make such imagery even more absurd than it is today. Imagine an Indian Hindu President ordering military action to overthrow a dictatorship in an Arab country. The Chinese SecDef consults with the Hispanic Head of the Joint Chiefs, who passes the orders down to the African-American commander of Centcom to initiate the attack.
I’d prefer a melting pot to a stone soup anyday.
One thing to keep in mind is that ideas about “Race” are always changing. 100 years ago, many American people saw Ashkenazi Jews, south Italians and Sicilians, and Slavs as unassimilable minorities, and not as true “whites” either (Eastern Europeans were part Mongol, Hun, and Turk, southern Europeans Arab and Moor). A view of Teutonic superiority over other Europeans was not confined to Germany at that time.
Now all European descended groups are scarcely seen as “different” except perhaps Jews by a few extremists. In 60 years people may see Hispanics (who are mostly multiracial to begin with) and Asians in much the same way as Italian-Americans and Jews are seen today.
I know the old “melting pot” idea of much of the last century has given way to multiculturalism, and there are less disadvantages to being non-white than in the past. In fact there are situations where it is advantageous to be a minority (A-A), but that may break down once it becomes eveident that groups can no longer be easily distinguished. Look at all the intermarriage which already occurrs between whites and Asians to a high degree and between Anglos and Hispanics to a lesser degree. I assume these projections of huge Hispanic and Asian numbers include people who are half, fourth, or some other fraction of ancestry as well. What will they be considered in 60 years?
However, up until now, African-Americans have not been readily assimilated, and have never been included in the whole “melting-pot” so far in American history. To me that is the big question. WIll they be increasingly absorbed or not. Frankly, it seems to me that most of the voices against black assimilation come from blacks, while it is white America that protests why they must continue to be “different”.
Even if “non-whites” become the numerical majority, I forsee that people who identify as “white” will remain the single largest group long after that. I think one thing that may happen is a change in how people percieve being “white”. As of now, it largely means being from 100% European ancestors. But as people embrace multiracialism, I also think the tyranny of absolute purity will diminish and folks who are 1/4th Asian or half Hispanic and not culturally Asian or Latino at all will have an easier time identifying as “white” or Euroamerican in the future than now. Of course a cyncical person may counter this means that whites will begin to admit “passable” non-whites in their group to avoid becoming a minority, but it is simply a repeat of the process that occurred when old stock British Americans begrudgingly admitted Germans, Italians, Poles, and even the Irish in their fold, making “Anglo” practically synonmymous with “white” in many areas today.
The bottom line is that race is not fixed in stone but it is a very fluid concept.
Blacks were here since the inception of this country. We fired guns for the Patriots in the Revolution, bosltered the nation’s economy for free for a few centuries, fought natives to clear land for the U.S. government and served in every one of its wars. The country is ours. We didn’t march over here in the middle of everything demand that everyone pay attention to us. We help build this place from the beginning! Who the hell is anyone to expect us to stop being “different” in our own god-damned country?
CA is already there. IIRC, we crossed the that line last year. Let me assure you-- it’s no biggie. I never even noticed.
I think the bigger issue is whether the black/white language of racial politics will change to include Hispanics and Asians. How a will Hispanic population larger than the Black population affect the latter, and the special place they have held in the US wrt “mintority” issues? By any reasonable estimate, the Hispanic population will grow much faster than the Black population in the US.
But I’m also guessing (hoping?) that the increased number of interracial marriages and young people who identify as being biracial (or multiracial) will help diffuse the polarizing effects that race and racial politics have had on this country.
If you looked at a major American city around 1880-1900, you would have seen entire neighborhoods that were easily identifiable as entirely Irish, or entirely Jewish, or entirely Italian, etc… Today there are no such neighborhoods. The key was that during the great migration to the suburbs, people didn’t really care about moving to a suburb that was entirely populated by people of the same national origin. Everybody just got mixed together, and many people stopped viewing ethnicity as a core part of their identity.
Today in some parts of the country you can find neighborhoods that are entirely Mexican, or entirely Korean, or entirely Vietnamese. I rather expect that the same thing will happen over the next few generations. People who were actually born in the United States and raised here generally see less reason to maintain segregation of that sort, and eventually they move out looking for jobs or education or family life and not really caring about the racial makeup of the place they end up in. By 2060, I’d say, there will be almost no neighborhoods anywhere where one ethnic group dominates entirely.
Thats the crux of the issue. Blacks have been here since 1619 (earlier if you consider Spanish and French colonies). Yet we have seen this pattern over and over again: a “new” group comes in. First there were indentured British servants, then Irish Catholics, Italians, Jews, Asians, and now Latin-Americans. And there is the exact same pattern. For a long time these arrivals are sort of lumped together with black people, sharing the same neighborhoods and social status. Then over time the “immigrant” group becomes assimilated and established and gains acceptance by the white majority, while blacks are often left behind socially and economically.
In essence, black people have always been seen as the perpetual outsiders even if most of American culture (that which is not a rip-off or borowing from Europe or Asia) is heavily African-American in origin.
I only was wondering if that would ever change, not that I advocate one scenario or another - but many whites seem to take the position that if minorities (especially blacks) “would just be more like us” there would be no racism! And blacks counter that there is nothing wrong with being black and perhaps a bit seperate, which actually shocks quite a few white people on some level. And its ironic considering how long the push for separate identities was in the opposite direction for so long.