A Majority-Minority Future In The USA Is A Divisive Myth w/ Richard Alba

Richard Alba joins the Majority Report crew to discuss the myth of the Majority-Minority society and how it supercharged White Racial anxiety and nationalist thinking. Alba shows how the census definition of whiteness was categorically narrow as it excluded individuals that identified as mixed. He also touched on how important it is it correct the Majority-Minority myth and the census’ racial categories.

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Sam Seder: So let’s talk a little bit about you know one of the things that people have speculated about and there’s I think, you cite some research as well in the book about the implications of the message that we’re headed towards a majority-minority society. That it creates- essentially, it supercharges white racial anxiety.

Richard Alba: Yes, it does. I mean I think there’s convincing social psychological research on this and you know a Yale social psychologist, Jennifer Richardson, and her colleagues have really been in the lead in demonstrating that when you prompt whites with you know some kind of signal about demographic change and what it might do to the white majority position, many of them not just conservatives many of them become anxious they adopt more conservative political opinions, they express more racial resentment, and I think a lot of the political science that has analyzed the outcome of the 2016 election has found that one of the driving forces was working-class white racial resentment that you know is it is affiliated with in some way- this sense of a loss of white’s position in American society. So, I see this as a divisive story and of course, it’s divisive in its very nature because it says that society is made up of these two great blocs one of which is whites and the white part is shrinking and the other part is growing, so I don’t think it’s a healthy way- I think it’s an incorrect way but it’s also an unhealthy way to view the kinds of social changes that are taking place in the US today.

SS: And the incorrect part about it is simply that there is something happening that is really, I guess it made maybe it sounds a little bit trite but it’s really sort of becoming a little bit more melty pot.

RA: Yes a little melty yeah

SS: Then being sort of a binary question. I think there was at one point you spoke about data that showed second-generation immigrants if I remember correctly had sort of outperformed and then third-generation immigrants had suddenly the progress had stopped…

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