Earlier this spring, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that California had become the first state in modern history to lack a racial majority. The bureau's revelation represents more than just a historic shift in demographics. It has been decades since scholars first rejected the melting pot description of America in favor of a "mixed salad" view: The country is more of a meeting point for the world's civilizations, a place where people from different backgrounds are free to retain their heritage regardless of their status as American citizens.
However, this conception has always been qualified by a white majority setting norms for everyone else. Immigrants are free to keep their ethnic identity even after they are citizens, but there has always been an idea of a homogenous American majority. This notion is changing. Just days after the census bureau's announcement, the city council of San Diego deemed the word "minority" no longer appropriate. The council voted unanimously to strike the word from official city documents and discussions, saying the term implied inferiority and demeaned those whom it classified.
Because California has long been known as the frontrunner on national trends, the state's reaction to its new demographics may set the tone for future racial dialogue nationwide. Issues of race and ethnicity are not going away, but how Americans classify each other is open to change. Even the new census form made accommodations, such as allowing respondents to declare more than one racial identity. But the San Diego City Council went a step further than a classification change--it boldly claimed that racial and ethnic classification has no place in society.
For a country that once was--and in many ways still is--dominated by a dominant discriminatory race, the suggestion that race no longer matters is to some refreshing and to others threatening. America has made some progress in moving away from racial discrimination, but the recognition of different ethnicities has remained commonplace in our culture. In hiring, admissions and course offerings, universities especially are increasingly concerned with ensuring representation from all backgrounds. Eliminating "minority" as a classification could lead to a meritocracy, but a complete abandonment of the notion of minority status seems to unsatisfactorily discount race as a factor in society.
The negative connotations that accompany the term "minority" indicate the term's inadequacy in classifying racial groups. Even the criteria for being called a minority are ambiguous. Statistically speaking, everyone in California is now a "minority," and the term has become entirely useless in classifying the population. Adding the criteria of oppression and historical experience restores some substance to the term, which nevertheless is still demeaning to many.
"I've always questioned the word Ominority' because it has always implied one group being dominant over another," says Sally Dickson, vice president for institutional equity. "We all know the power of language, and Ominority' has always meant Oless.'"
The case of South Africa is particularly illustrative, because until 1994 the 11 percent white minority ruled over the 87 percent black majority. Population size mattered little in that power structure. Rather, the small number of whites maintained an unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, and their statistical status as a minority contradicted their position in society. "Minority," then, seems to necessitate some level of oppression to be relevant.
"As long as real opportunities and access to the highest positions of status, prestige and wealth remain largely limited to whites, the term Ominority' still makes sense," William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and a professor of history, writes in an e-mail. "It describes those who for reasons of various physical characteristics are still viewed through different eyes by police, courts, country clubs and banks."
Instead of dismissing as irrelevant the concept of classifying races, Dickson says Americans need to understand other cultures better, first by acknowledging that Americans know very little about other cultures. Dickson relates an experience she had while teaching a class to a group of mostly foreign students. Seeking to encourage discussion, she invited the students to engage in debate and ask questions. She was met with silence. Soon, she says, she learned that the students simply did not understand the cultural basis of her teaching method. "My paradigm was that of the American academy, where students are expected to debate with the professors," Dickson says.
Such confusion arises from the growing diversity of America and the difficulty in understanding the multitude of cultures that now meet at the American crossroads. "The paradigm that we've all been working out of, because of historical reasons, is the black-white paradigm," Dickson says. "When you factor in the fluid integration of other cultures, that paradigm is shifting. We're all trying to figure out how we talk to each other."
Figuring that out becomes more complicated when no racial majority exists to force cultural norms. Duke is certainly trying, however. From recruitment of minority students and faculty members to development of programs in African and African American Studies and other cultural areas, the University has made sincere attempts to encourage diversity. But many would say those attempts have not been strong enough; Chafe describes them as "ongoing."
The challenge to diversify can only get more intriguing as the mosaic of cultures becomes that much more complex. "It makes my job more interesting," Dickson says. "There is a conceptual shift that comes when the majority is really just the largest category and not representing the dominant group, the group that represents the norm." But to the extent that American culture can be defined, it has been so dominated by the long-standing white racial majority that white views have almost always been received as the true and unanimous culture.
This minority-majority paradigm is evident in the American electoral system. Much more than the parliamentary governments of many European nations, the two-party system in America puts a heavy emphasis on the authority of the majority. Political parties in continental Europe rarely win outright majorities in their legislatures, depending instead on coalitions and consensus. By contrast, American parties rarely feel compelled to consider the rights of a political minority. In the Electoral College, in fact, most states award all their delegates solely to the candidate that wins a majority, no matter how slim.
"In a parliamentary system you sometimes need to get together with those whom you really disagree with," says Judith White, adjunct professor of the practice of women's studies, who studies racism in feminist theory and practice. "Majority does not in and of itself confer power, unless you have a system that ensures that.... We don't have the same experience as a democracy of large blocs and small blocs working together. In the future there will need to be more coalition politics."
The current inability or unwillingness to form political coalitions is a symptom of how Americans think in terms of majorities and minorities. In elections and legislatures, the winner takes all, and the considerations of political minorities are secondary.
As the day approaches when American whites lose majority status, so do we move closer to losing the embedded idea that the majority's culture is the norm. There will likely be no homogenous racial majority, but, White notes, some groups could coalesce for political reasons. She cites the Rainbow Coalition, started by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to unify the political goals of racial minorities. So far the success of that group has been limited, but the imminent irrelevance of the term "racial majority" suggests that such organizations could have an important role in the near future. "Political forces will undergo a realignment," White says. "These groups will have to decide what they have in common, what makes them a majority."
The recent vote by the San Diego City Council echoes a growing nationwide sentiment against the labeling of groups. Considering the apparent inevitability of whites losing their majority in America, the term "minority" is becoming increasingly vague. If the term is to retain any substance, Americans must reevaluate their tendency to frame society in a minority-majority dichotomy.
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