It was a big story the other day when demographers reading the census data reported that today in the U.S., births of ethnic and racial minorities have surpassed white American births.
I think the trend has clear implications for US support for Israel, whose advocates routinely speak about a demographic “threat” — too many non-Jewish births.
But first, some of the U.S. analysis. The Times of London:
The minority dominance of the youngest generation has broad implications for America’s sense of self and the social contract binding the generations together.
“This is an important landmark,” said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who is now a sociologist at Howard University. “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”
New York Times:
“This is an important tipping point,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, describing the shift as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.” Signs that the country is evolving this way start with the Oval Office, and have swept hundreds of counties in recent years, with 348 in which whites are no longer in the majority..
And the fact that the country is getting a burst of births from nonwhites is a huge advantage, argues Dowell Myers, professor of policy, planning and demography at the University of Southern California. European societies with low levels of immigration now have young populations that are too small to support larger aging ones, exacerbating problems with the economy.
“If the U.S. depended on white births alone, we’d be dead,” Mr. Myers said. “Without the contributions from all these other groups, we would become too top-heavy with old people.”
Diversity and appreciation of minorities are two trends that are bound to undermine America’s special relationship with Israel, a relationship that itself is based on a sociological trend: the great Jewish inclusion in the establishment.
These new trends will expose Israel’s obsession with demographics as out of date and out of step with U.S. attitudes. President Obama honors Israel’s demographic concerns (as Rob’t Wexler notes). But at how many more speeches to AIPAC will he be able to talk about “the demographic realities” (2011) and “shifting demographics” (2012) without coming off as a racist?
The other day at Bnai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side, Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street said the day is fast approaching when the world will look on the Israel/Palestine question very simply as an issue of granting a darker-skinned majority the vote. Ben-Ami wants to do everything he can to put that day off. But to his credit, he recognizes the inevitability of such a discussion. And he knows very well where diverse Americans will stand on that question.
census data reported that today in the U.S., births of ethnic and racial minorities have surpassed white American births.
yeah! i love this! finally. diversity rules!
Great book “The Browning of America” Read it some time ago. Good read
Oh by the way folks we all need to make phone calls,, send money, hit the ground, step up to the plate on the upcoming Walker recall election on June 5th. This is an important election for Wisconsin, the labor movement and the fall election…can set the tone.
Wisconsin recall slipping away from Democrats
“All three polls out this week show Walker leading Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) by between 5 percent and 9 percent. Perhaps more illustrative, though, are the candidate’s personal favorability and approval numbers.
Despite all the attempts by Democrats and organized labor to turn him into the bogeyman, Walker’s job approval and favorable rating both remain in positive territory, at right around 50 percent.
Barrett, meanwhile, has no such luxury. The latest Marquette University Law School poll of this race showed his favorable rating at just 37 percent, compared to 45 percent who view him unfavorably.”
Russ Feingold Hosting Fundraiser For Tom Barrett In Wisconsin …www.huffingtonpost.com/…/russ-feingold-tom-barrett-wisc…
I love diversity and democracy. Hrmpfffff. However, the 0.01% still rule and AIPAC is definitely part of that. It’s not population (or votes) that matter, because these things NEVER come to direct votes. Darn.
The American concept of “white” is an imaginary one – imposed on people arbitrarily, as happens to fit in with the imposer’s agenda at that moment.
A list of groups that were considered “non-white” in the U.S. includes Irish and Italian Catholics, Arabs, European Jews, Asians, and Africans. It’s entirely arbitrary, born of the desire to dominate others.
It is not a reality. The sooner we stop counting and referring to this imaginary classification, the sooner we can step away from the racism ingrained in America.
“Diversity and appreciation of minorities are two trends that are bound to undermine America’s special relationship with Israel, a relationship that itself is based on a sociological trend: the great Jewish inclusion in the establishment”
I agree. And hispanics are our largest growing group. AIPAC is already on them and will use their usual techinque of selecting members of some minority group to finance for political offices in return for Israel loyalty or try to align with them under the guise of helping them as they did in the blacks civil rights. However I don’t think that’s going to work as well as it has in the past for several reasons. Hispanics are still working on their own economic advancement in the US which makes them more attuned to negative affects on the American applecart because it will affect them more as a “new” group. I don’t think hispanic voters are going be to receptive to the Israel loyalty idea.