White Dominance in the US is Winding Down

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The US Census Bureau released demographic population data yesterday that will be used by the states in drawing their congressional districts for the next decade.  Some progressive states have devised independent agencies to draw those districts with an eye toward limiting decisions based on politics, but the majority have systems in place where the legislatures and governors ultimately determine district lines, and those systems are, by-and-large, completely political.

Republicans generally expect to use the redistricting to enhance their position in Congress, but when it comes to designing the make-up of the House of Representatives, this time may prove to be conservative white America's last hurrah.

The census data release yesterday showed more than just how many Americans were living where, it also gave other factors like educational level, income, and race - things that will also be taken into account as politicians carefully craft districts designed to benefit themselves and their political parties for the next ten years.

It was the area of race that generated the most headlines, with the overall thrust being that on the basis of race the United States is steadily becoming a more diversified nation.  The new numbers show that while non-hispanic whites still represent the majority in the US - at 58% of the population, the percentage of non-hispanic whites has decreased over the past two censuses.  In 2000, non-hispanic whites represented 69% of the total population, and in 2010 that same demographic was 63.7% of the population - or in simpler terms, non-hispanic whites as a percentage of the total US population were decreasing about five percent every ten years.

That would appear to be a fairly significant drop.  

But, even more surprisingly, the actual number of non-hispanic whites dropped for the first time in the US Census history, counts which have been taken every ten years since 1790.  In 2010 there were 224 million non-hispanic whites in the United States, and the 20s0 census revealed only 204 million non-hispanic whites.  A highly significant drop in actual numbers of people in that racial category.

Newser.com had a headline this morning which read:  "For the First Time in History, White Population Shrinks."  It shrank not only as a percentage of the total population, but in actual numbers as well.  It was a true headline, and the ramifications of that truth are likely to exacerbate the racial paranoia that helps to fuel the country's political anger.    Politicians will work even harder at crafting laws to limit the rights of non-whites, rabid racists will become even crazier in their war on immigrants from south of the border,  trust in government will continue to decrease, and gun sales will continue to increase.

It's very hard to accept that more than two centuries of cultural, social, economic, and political dominance is coming to an end.