White people are going out of fashion in America (see: Get Out, Black Panther, Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “APESHIT” video), but they may be going out of existence too. The Census Bureau has long predicted a future in which white people are no longer the majority in America. The shift could happen much sooner than the original 2045 prediction, a new report has found. Deaths of white people are exceeding the births of white people in more than half the states in the country.
There are myriad reasons behind white people losing their demographic foothold in America: immigration, low birth rates, the Baby Boomer generation dying out.. However, at this new rate, white people could see their place in American society look very different, very quickly. Small town areas like Marin County in North Carolina provide an intriguing glimpse of what the change could look like, the New York Times illustrated. There, few white adults between the ages of 18-36 can be found and four schools had to be closed as a result of fewer children being born each generation.
It is commonly assumed that as less white America would see the rise of more progressive politics. A country in which immigrant children being held in cages would be unlikely. However, some academics are hesitant to agree with this. For one: people of color are not a monolith and therefore do not all have the same political views. Second, as one sociologist at the City University of New York argues, mixed-race children have been found to “lean white” in their views regarding “income, school, and marriage. “The Census Bureau is trying to apply a 20th century conception of race and ethnicity on a situation that’s fundamentally changing,” Professor Alba told the New York Times. “You could think of them as kind of integrating into a kind of white mainstream.”
Professor Alba’s world raises an interesting point of exploration. It is reductive to assume people of color will always align with the Democratic Party. In fact, relying on black female voters without addressing their concerns has been the downfall of many recent democrat campaigns. A serious examination of what a more brown American future could look like should be researched — and not just assumed. On the other hand, the country is definitely becoming more gay.
You can read the full report here.