The new census reports confirms the trend of the US moving towards becoming a majority non-white country, providing more fuel to the fears of white nationalists who see themselves losing what they think is their God-given right, to be the dominant group that runs the country for their own benefit.
But I was interested in the graphic that can be seen here that plots the demographic changes by counties for every decade starting from 1980.
Interestingly, most of rapidly growing majority-minority counties are in the south and southwest, the places that are commonly associated with fear-mongering about immigrants and xenophobic attitudes. Could that be because they can actually see these changes occurring all around them?
White, non-Hispanic Americans are about 58% of the U.S. population, according to data from the 2020 census released on Thursday. That’s lower than the estimates of 60%, and it compares with about 64% in 2010.
They are no longer the racial-ethnic majority in 400 of the nation’s 3,100+ counties and county equivalents, up from 340 a decade ago.
…Nonwhiteness and diversity are actually two different measures. The Census also has developed a way to calculate diversity based on how likely it is that two people chosen at random within a boundary will be of different races or ethnicities.
The least diverse state, by this measure, is Maine, at 19%. The most diverse is Hawaii, at 76%.
Yes, it’s interesting that the majority-minority counties are mostly in places where white people are currently freaking out the most. But, given enough time, nothing breeds…..well, normalcy, like familiarity. So, when whites in those places see that the presence of non-white people doesn’t really change much about their lives, will they relax, and hate crimes and discriminatory practices will lessen there? It might take a long time. And a lot of violent freaking out first.
And, when places like Maine begin to have more people of color, and start approaching a non-white presence, will the whites then react with xenophobia and the whole thing?
I misread the post title as ‘countries’ when I first clicked.
I was in Hawaii a few years ago. One of the tour guides we had was a white guy from somewhere in the Midwest, IIRC. His wife was Japanese, and his daughter, who accompanied us, was learning English, Japanese and Hawaiian.
“Could that be because they can actually see these changes occurring all around them?”
I think that deserves a “duh”.
“will they relax, and hate crimes and discriminatory practices will lessen”
Have met…people? How did the happy clappy ethnic mix work out in, say, Rwanda?
Things won’t calm down because the numbers get even. Things will only calm down after the MONEY is even. (ie there are a many rich minority people as there are rich White people). I won’t live to see that.