I’m black. I’ve never embraced being called a minority. Even as a lad I instinctively avoided the term. I’m guessing subconsciously I knew it was stupid.
Minority is basically a math term. It denotes the smaller part of a number, but I can’t help but think that “minority” in terms of race, connotes something ominous. It promotes division, and is code for a modern day caste system in America.
The term minority took rise in the 50’s and 60’s during the civil rights movement. It is the term of choice for all of the civil rights legislation of JFK, and LBJ, especially affirmative action law.
IGNORANT
I call the term stupid because things like minority and majority are fluid. Say a person owns 49% of a business. He is considered a minority owner. However if on the next day he buys and additional 2% of the business he becomes the majority owner.
NAIVE
I’m sure the activists and legislators of the time were well meaning, and thought the term prudent. At best its short sided. Maybe in the moment they could never see minorities as equal in number to white Americans. The country was less than 200 years old at the time, but someone should have had the forethought to ask the question, what will the country look like in 100 or 200 years? In math terms, 2043 is the year that the minority becomes the majority. That is less than 100 years from the civil rights movement.
DIABOLICAL
The dark side of me thinks that some knew exactly what they were doing when they popularized the term “minority.” To them, no matter what the demographic landscape looked like minorities would always be the lesser part of the whole. These diabolical men will not go quietly into the night. They will not share the driver seat, they will not relinquish the stranglehold they have on the stern of the vessel we happily call America.
Currently in Hawaii, New Mexico, California, and Texas the majority of the population is non-white, but non -whites are not called the majority. More importantly whites are not called minorities. These states are categorized as “minority/majority” states. Interesting right???
The other day I’m watching the White House Correspondent Dinner. This is an event where the President and the Press come together and make light of their sometimes contentious relationship. The President starting remarking about republican’s recent desire to reach out to the minority community to which he quipped; “I have a suggestion, I’m a minority, why don’t you start with me?”
Something about that joke didn’t sit right with me. Full disclosure I’m a registered republican. I’m not the biggest fan of President Obama. However, when he was elected in 2008 my flesh rejoiced in seeing a man of my race rise to the office of the president. In my mind a president can’t be a minority of ANYTHING. A president, to me, is in the MAJORITY, no matter race, creed, gender, or preference.
I’m hoping that this term dies as we get closer to 2043, but if history is an indicator some clever group will come up with a term to keep us divided instead of allowing us to UNITE.
