A minority-majority nation: racing the population in the twenty-first century.

• Author: Powell, John A.

INTRODUCTION

The media has devoted considerable attention to recent Census projections that predict a minority-majority nation by 2060. (1) Such projections presume that racial and ethnic categories will remain stable in the twenty-first century. Historically, however, this has not been the case. The Census has racially and ethnically classified different segments of the population based on the social, economic, and political climate of the time. This article examines the forces that impact the creation of racial categories and how these forces are reflected in Census classification. This article particularly explores the instability of the Hispanic category and how Hispanics might be ordered within the white/non-white racial structure in the future. Public discourse has also questioned how a minority-majority population might impact the nation's political power structures. This article asserts increased racial populations will not alone destabilize white racial domination. Racist policies and practices will persist, preventing minorities from turning numbers into political capital, unless minorities organize to dismantle racially oppressive structures.

1. 2000 DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS AND PUBLIC/MEDIA PERCEPTIONS

   1. Increasing Hispanic Population and Decreasing White Population in Cities

      A recent New York Times editorial, "Whites in Minority in Largest Cities, The Census Shows," (2) describes some of the dramatic demographic shifts, particularly within the Hispanic Census category, that have fueled the debate on the likelihood of a minority-majority nation. The racial distribution data that has riled the nation is summarized in Table 1. (3)

      The media has focused considerable attention on the increases in the Latina/o population. Between 1990 and 2000, the top 100 cities gained 3.8 million new Hispanic residents--an increase of 43% over 1990 levels. (4) Hispanic populations in thirty-two cities more than doubled in size. Furthermore, several cities in the South had exceptionally high growth, including Charlotte, North Carolina at 614% and Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee at 456%. (5)

      At the same time, many cities lost a significant number of whites. In 1990, non-Hispanic whites accounted for 52% of residents in the 100 largest cities. In 2000, they accounted only for 44% of such residents. The top 100 cities experienced a net reduction in the non-Hispanic white population of 2.3 million people, and the five largest cities lost nearly one million white residents. (6) While in 1990, whites represented more than 50% of the population in seventy of the 100 largest cities, in 2000, whites were a majority in only fifty-two of those cities. (7)

   2. The Census

      1. A Subjective Measurement Tool

         These trends have contributed to the perception that minority populations are quickly overtaking the white majority. This fear is not new. After the 1990 Census, one Oregon newspaper poll reported citizens believed that 49.9% of the U.S population was white, when it was really 74%. (8) Since the release of the 2000 demographic data, the media has reported extensively on minority growth, but the details are often lost. For example, at 69.1%, non-Hispanic whites are still a healthy majority in the U.S.

         The media discourse also misconstrues the nature of racial and ethnic categories in the Census. We often start from the assumption that measurement tools, like the Census, have a kind of apolitical and objective basis. For example, we assume that definable racial minority populations exist, and we debate over how to create the most objective techniques by which to measure them. When the media reports on the booming Hispanic population, it does so as if the Hispanic population has always existed.

         In this discourse on a minority-majority nation, our initial pre-sumptions are a primary concern. Should it be presumed that definable and distinguishable populations of color exist? Have Hispanics always existed as a category of people, and will that category exist in the future? Measurement tools are not objective. Rather, they reflect the way we envision ourselves as a culture and as a nation. As Naomi Mezey contends, the Census "is both a legal and cultural mechanism for imagining the American nation, a nation that has always represented itself with racial specificity." (9) The Census measures people based on color because Americans divide the population along color lines. If we did not view color as significant to our politics and to our culture, we would not measure it, and we would not be debating the potential of a minority-majority nation. Color, however, has always been significant in America. Historically, we have envisioned ourselves as a nation of free white persons who have full rights to participate in civic and social society, and a nation of racial others with varying degrees of social and political rights. The Census has always mirrored this vision.

      2. The Census Has Historically Contributed to White Dominance

         The Census has been a consistent tool in defining whiteness and reenforcing its dominance. The nationwide enumeration mandated in the United States Constitution divided the population along color lines. Article I requires the government to apportion representatives and taxes based on the number of persons within each state. (10) This article stated that free persons, Native Americans, and non-free persons were to be counted differently. The Census was to count the "whole number of free persons" but to exclude Native Americans and "three fifths of all other persons." While the Constitution did not expressly refer to color or race, it did so indirectly by categorizing Native Americans and non-free persons, who were primarily people of color.

         This method of counting the overall population established a tradition for distinguishing whites from non-whites. (11) For example, in the years leading to the Civil War, congressmen tried to push a bill that could chart the migration patterns of slaves. The bill proposed that the Census account for the age, color, and sex of slaves; the number of children females had given birth to; and the "degree of removal from pure white or pure black races." (12) Previously, the Census had only listed slaves by number, and southern congressman were strongly opposed to giving a more descriptive face to slaves. (13) This opposition managed to gut the new bill of many of its proposed reforms. It seems that southern leaders realized that efforts to humanize slaves would ultimately threaten whites' dominant position.

      3. The Census as an Inclusive Tool

         Perhaps what has changed most significantly over time is the amount of political forces operating on the Census. While the Census originally served to exclude those of different races from democratic participation, minority counter-movements have begun to use the Census to demand previously denied social and political rights. (14) For example, the enactment of anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (15) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, (16) necessitated the collection of racial and ethnic data to ensure compliance with these statutes. (17) In light of these developments, in 1977 the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") drafted Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. This standard directed the Census to report racial data based on four mutually exclusive categories: 1) White, 2) Black, 3) American Indian and Alaskan Native, and 4) Asian and Pacific Islander. (18) The policy further required the Census to report whether individuals were of Hispanic ethnicity. (19) In Census 2000, the OMB included a fifth racial category. The Asian/ Pacific Islander category was divided into an Asian American category and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander category. Also, the 2000 Census accounted for multiracial people by allowing respondents to mark multiple races.

2. RACIAL CATEGORIES ARE NOT STATIC: THUS WE DO NOT KNOW WHETHER WHITES WILL BE A NUMERICAL MINORITY

   1. Race as a Biological Trait

      Contemporary public discourse often defines race in essentialist terms. An essentialist racial theory suggests that race is an inherent and biological trait of a person. Science has shown that racial categories largely lack a scientific foundation. Variations in biological properties, such as pigment, occur in all races, and differences in physical characteristics are related to the location of population clusters on geographical gradients and not to any scientifically provable notion of race. (20)

      Nonetheless, the dominant white majority has used false biological notions of race to categorize and subordinate populations of color. One example is the rule of hypodescence, which categorizes a child born of a white parent and a black parent as black, because one drop of "black blood" renders a person black. (21) Legislatures originally incorporated the hypodescent rule into state laws to ensure that white slave owners could use black women's bodies to increase the number of slaves they owned despite the newborn slave's biracial lineage. (22) The hypodescent rule still serves as a basis for racial categorization, as shown in a 1985 Louisiana case where a women who was raised white sued the state when she discovered her birth certificate stated she was black due to her multi-racial lineage. (23)

      While scientists have begun to acknowledge that biological understandings of race have little basis, essentialist views continue to dominate the public racial discourse. The current multiracial movement provides one example of persistent essentialist notions of race. Led by groups such as Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally), parents in interracial marriages demanded that the Census account for their multiracial children. (24) Accordingly, the Office of Management and Budget allowed respondents to mark multiple races on the 2000 Census. (25)...