New Census Shows Fewer White Americans, But That’s Because of How We’re Counting
Are you alarmed or reassured by headlines that show “America’s white population is shrinking”? Where you stand, as the old saying goes, depends on where you sit.
I think everyone who believes in our multiracial democracy — not including, say, those die-hard haters who paraded with torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “You will not replace us” in 2017 — should be reassured.
A closer look at the 2021 census numbers reveals a rosier future for multiracial democracy: White people aren’t being “replaced” by people of color as much as they’re being joined.
By that I mean more Americans, including many who previously would have chosen only “white” on their census form, are choosing more than one race. Until the 2000 census, everyone had to check only one racial box, including those who otherwise consider themselves to be multiracial.
Almost all groups have seen population gains since then, but the increase in those who checked two or more boxes ballooned since 2010 in the decennial survey more than 276%, higher than any other racial group.
But since breakdowns of the country’s racial and ethnic makeup tend to focus by force of habit, custom and traditions on one group a time, media and public attention zoomed in on the decline of those who checked “White” alone, a group that did decline by 8.6%.
Similar declines in the white population in recent decades have sparked alarm among white nationalists and others such as the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill rioters and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who should know better.
Similarly xenophobic impulses have a long history in our society, dating back most dramatically to the nativist and populist Know Nothing Party that mainly targeted Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1850s.
“Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter,” Carlson said in an April program. “I have less political power because they are importing a brand-new electorate.”
Since the fall of Kabul, his fellow Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham has come out against welcoming Afghanistan refugees who risked their lives to work for the U.S. during the war. “Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially unvetted refugees from Afghanistan?” she said. “All day, we’ve heard phrases like, ‘We’ve promised them.’ Well, who did? Did you?”
...continued
(c) 2021 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
