The Atlantic has the absolute must read piece of the day (seriously) about the coming minority majority in America. In the rhetorically titled, “The End of White America?” Hua Hsu of Vassar College examines a basket of issues surrounding the idea that it is no longer even mildly desireable to be “white” in America. According to Hsu, white youth are trying desperately to mimic the cultures they see within minority groups as a means to escape the blandness of their “non-culture”:
Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities–blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians–will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation.
Obviously, steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage complicate this picture, pointing toward what Michael Lind has described as the “beiging” of America. And it’s possible that “beige Americans” will self-identify as “white” in sufficient numbers to push the tipping point further into the future than the Census Bureau projects. But even if they do, whiteness will be a label adopted out of convenience and even indifference, rather than aspiration and necessity. For an earlier generation of minorities and immigrants, to be recognized as a “white American,” whether you were an Italian or a Pole or a Hungarian, was to enter the mainstream of American life; to be recognized as something else, as the Thind case suggests, was to be permanently excluded. As Bill Imada, head of the IW Group, a prominent Asian American communications and marketing company, puts it: “I think in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, [for] anyone who immigrated, the aspiration was to blend in and be as American as possible so that white America wouldn’t be intimidated by them. They wanted to imitate white America as much as possible: learn English, go to church, go to the same schools.”
Today, the picture is far more complex. To take the most obvious example, whiteness is no longer a precondition for entry into the highest levels of public office. The son of Indian immigrants doesn’t have to become “white” in order to be elected governor of Louisiana. A half-Kenyan, half-Kansan politician can self-identify as black and be elected president of the United States. [Link]
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p>The case of The United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind mentioned in the article (someone we’ve blogged of before) refers to the 1923 case in which an Indian American veteran argued that he should be considered white (a precondition to becoming a naturalized citizen) because Indians were descended from Aryans:
Associate Justice George Sutherland found that, while Thind, an Asian Indian, may have had “purity of Aryan blood” due to being “born in Village Taragarh Talawa,near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab” and having “high caste” status he was not Caucasian in the “common understanding”, so he could not be included in the “statutory category as white persons”.[1] George Sutherland wrote in his summary: [Link]
Hsu inevitably cites hip hop as one of the most important instruments used for overturning the desirability of whiteness:
Just as Tiger Woods forever changed the country-club culture of golf, and Will Smith confounded stereotypes about the ideal Hollywood leading man, hip-hop’s rise is helping redefine the American mainstream, which no longer aspires toward a single iconic image of style or class. Successful network-television shows like Lost, Heroes, and Grey’s Anatomy feature wildly diverse casts, and an entire genre of half-hour comedy, from The Colbert Report to The Office, seems dedicated to having fun with the persona of the clueless white male. The youth market is following the same pattern: consider the Cheetah Girls, a multicultural, multiplatinum, multiplatform trio of teenyboppers who recently starred in their third movie, or Dora the Explorer, the precocious bilingual 7-year-old Latina adventurer who is arguably the most successful animated character on children’s television today. In a recent address to the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, Brown Johnson, the Nickelodeon executive who has overseen Dora’s rise, explained the importance of creating a character who does not conform to “the white, middle-class mold.” When Johnson pointed out that Dora’s wares were outselling Barbie’s in France, the crowd hooted in delight.
Pop culture today rallies around an ethic of multicultural inclusion that seems to value every identity–except whiteness. “It’s become harder for the blond-haired, blue-eyed commercial actor,” remarks Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, of the Hispanic marketing firm Enlace. “You read casting notices, and they like to cast people with brown hair because they could be Hispanic. The language of casting notices is pretty shocking because it’s so specific: ‘Brown hair, brown eyes, could look Hispanic.’ Or, as one notice put it: ‘Ethnically ambiguous.'”
“I think white people feel like they’re under siege right now–like it’s not okay to be white right now, especially if you’re a white male,” laughs Bill Imada, of the IW Group…<
p>If they’re right–if white America is indeed “losing control,” and if the future will belong to people who can successfully navigate a post-racial, multicultural landscape–then it’s no surprise that many white Americans are eager to divest themselves of their whiteness entirely. [Link]
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p>I would point to success of Slumdog Millionaire at the Golden Globes last night as a perfect example of a film which appeals to the mainstream (i.e., white America) especially because it is so “non-white” (unless you count the director and producer). A British newspaper even ran the headline, “Slumdog Millionaire: the first film of the Obama era,” this morning. Obama-era is thinly veiled code for “era of the minority.” Let’s be honest, based purely on critical elements Slumdog did not deserve best picture. Although most of the dialog was convincing, that between the two main characters was atrocious drivel. Dev Patel was also woefully miscast as the lead. That being said, it was a very entertaining and moving film and if it wins the Oscar for best picture it will join Forrest Gump and Titanic as overrated movies that were nonetheless worthy as crowd pleasers (although if you liked Titanic you should be shot). The main appeal of Slumdog is the slum part, set to A.R. Rahman and M.I.A’s exotic music. To like it is to be hip. If you saw it earlier than most at one of the limited screenings in L.A. or NYC then you get extra hipness points. This film follows in the wake of another popular multiethnic film, City of God. A few years ago if you found yourself at a multiethnic party of elitist
Matt Wray, a sociologist at Temple University who is a fan of Lander’s [the guy behind stuffwhitepeoplelike.com] humor, has observed that many of his white students are plagued by a racial-identity crisis: “They don’t care about socioeconomics; they care about culture. And to be white is to be culturally broke. The classic thing white students say when you ask them to talk about who they are is, ‘I don’t have a culture.’ They might be privileged, they might be loaded socioeconomically, but they feel bankrupt when it comes to culture … They feel disadvantaged, and they feel marginalized. They don’t have a culture that’s cool or oppositional.” Wray says that this feeling of being culturally bereft often prevents students from recognizing what it means to be a child of privilege–a strange irony that the first wave of whiteness-studies scholars, in the 1990s, failed to anticipate.
Of course, the obvious material advantages that come with being born white–lower infant-mortality rates and easier-to-acquire bank loans, for example–tend to undercut any sympathy that this sense of marginalization might generate. [Link]
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p>The funny thing is that when I read the site “Stuff White People Like,” I invariably find that I like most of that stuff too. Does that make me a minority who is “too white” and will thus begin to seek a minority fix whenever I’m jonesing? Does use of the term “jonesing” just then count as such a fix? This is the one thing that I feel Hsu doesn’t adequately address when he is describing the “wigger” phenomenon. How do you explain Asian youth who mimic hip hop culture when they already have their own culture that is separate from white non-culture? My head is spinning.
In 1994, a young graffiti artist and activist named William “Upski” Wimsatt, the son of a university professor, published Bomb the Suburbs, the spiritual heir to Norman Mailer’s celebratory 1957 essay, “The White Negro.” Wimsatt was deeply committed to hip-hop’s transformative powers, going so far as to embrace the status of the lowly “wigger,” a pejorative term popularized in the early 1990s to describe white kids who steep themselves in black culture. Wimsatt viewed the wigger’s immersion in two cultures as an engine for change. “If channeled in the right way,” he wrote, “the wigger can go a long way toward repairing the sickness of race in America.” [Link]
As a point of contrast to the entire discussion above I point you to a series of stories on NPR’s Morning Edition this week, the first of which I awoke to this morning. The three part series chronicles the struggle of minorities in Europe to be recognized and accepted in their country (Germany in the first story) despite, in some instances, their family having lived there for several generations:
In Europe, Barack Obama’s election as president of the United States was met with euphoria. But now, the continent is peering into the mirror, realizing there is little chance a member of one of its own minorities could reach such prominence any time soon.
Take Germany, for instance, where notions of national identity are still strictly linked to ethnicity. Nonwhite Germans are still fighting to overcome exclusion from mainstream society in many ways.<
p>”When you take white as the norm, and everything else is deviant from that, and your advertising is always targeted at white people, or when you write school books and they’re targeted at white children, this is, for me, a racist experience,” she says.[Link]
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Simply amazing isn’t it? On one side of the globe we are talking about the overthrow of “Whitey” only a couple of generations after minorities gained a solid foothold here. In Europe, even after several generations, the divide between white and “other” seems stretched to a chasm. Is there any wonder why it is so hard to find homegrown terrorists in America? Excuse me now while I go listen to some Santogold and read The Root before going to bed.
Abhi,
if you ask Christian Lander, the guy who started SWPL, i believe he would say that the consumption habits you share are those of the Facebook crowd–not so much the larger ‘white’ that Hsu seems to be describing. SWPL is about the people who find it necessary to signal their social status, composed entirely of status-bearing goods/services/cultural outings, to their peers.
Elitist/Cool points…
-ended for MIA after the Pineapple Express commercial featuring Paper Planes -ended for Slumdog Millionaire last night -are still in effect for Russell Peters south of the Mason Dixon line and east of the Rockies -are still in effect for anyone wearing a Rinku Singh or Dinesh Patel Pirates jersey -may still be in effect for Manoj
No way dude, I saw that Manoj film months before another blogger finally posted it here 🙂
i don’t know dude. It is true I change my Facebook status a lot but it is rarely a pleasant update that would lead my peers to envy me.
“The son of Indian immigrants doesn’t have to become “white†in order to be elected governor of Louisiana.” Ahem, WRONG example by the author “Hua Hsu “. Is he talking about Betaa Piyush, oops no,”Bobby? Jindal, the rudraksh wearing Catholic+conservative candidate. I am not questioning Bobby Jindal’s conservative creds or his motive to become Catholic. He might have genuinely liked that religion over Hinduism to convert. But what I am questioning is the author’s premise that the son of Indian (and Hindu) parents did not have to “become white” to become guv. Hua Hsu needs a reality check. There are other examples that could have been picked. Or perhaps the loss of Aswin Madia (?), how is that for an example of non whiteness still not making it on the poll front.
In comment above, the “the rudraksh wearing” was an attempt at humor. If you don’t get it, just think of it as a lame attempt at sarc humor.
Good point, although to be fair his non-white remnants are the main argument many make in favor of him being the leading contender to challenge Obama in ’12.
Reg. this my opinion is mixed. First of all if America wants or fears non-white immigrants,it can do some heavy duty filtration at its embassies very easily like Europe. It can also make the naturalization process difficult. But maybe political correctness prevents it from enforcing such rules outrightly ; but it can still do as much as Europe. Secondly in any evolving multi-cultural society this kind of churning – losing your distinctive “culture” — is bound to happen (like Maharastrians in Mumbai cribbing abt folks from UP/Bihar recently and from the South in the past). Thirdly US cannot outrightly reject immigrants coz a lot of “spending” ( excluding “innovation” argument) is indirectly driven by the “consumption” of these ever arriving folks and hence it benefits the economy. Finally I’ll relate what a white American mentioned, during an intellectual discussion in a party -“..the ever flowing immigrants actually keeps the birth/aging ratio favorable in US unlike what happens in Europe and Japan….”
ok, i’m applying to nelly’s entourage. “even when i’m with my boo, you know i’m crazy over you”
with apologies to my desi computer scientist boo.
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blockquote>Wimsatt was deeply committed to hip-hop’s transformative powers, going so far as to embrace the status of the lowly “wigger,†a pejorative term popularized in the early 1990s to describe white kids who steep themselves in black culture. Wimsatt viewed the wigger’s immersion in two cultures as an engine for change. “If channeled in the right way,†he wrote, “the wigger can go a long way toward repairing the sickness of race in America.â€
Wimsatt’s painfully earnest attempts to put his own relationship with whiteness under the microscope coincided with the emergence of an academic discipline known as “whiteness studies.â€blockquote>
paging louiecypher!!
8 · Priya said
Wait, how does the influx of immigrants affect my (or anyone’s) birth/aging ratio in the US, in the short-term?
I feel it’s harder to make that kind of a statement about the US, a country whose nationality is not necessarily tied to an ethnicity, than India, Japan, China, The Philippines, etc.
In that sense, 1st/2nd gen Japanese in the US might not be subject entirely to the US b/r ratio– they may also be influenced by Japan’s b/r ratio. This changes, however, after generations and generations are born and live their lives in America, and they have cut data ties to their native lands.
Or that’s what I think, at least.
Two points:
(1) Stop ragging on Jindal–he’s a HUGE success–be Christian in the US if you need to be, be Hindu in India if you need to be–VHP-A for Jindal, F***-yeah! Mongrels FTW! (Reference to “South Park” Republicans)
(2) The US has been through this before–just b/c Irish and Italians got into the “club” in the 1950’s doesn’t make it any less of a “club”–beware false promises of egalitarianism–maintain your “club-ability” quotient–what, what?!
Sebs, maybe this is what that person meant by immigration(folks staying for a longer time) having a positive effect on US population level – Immigration and population growth. Europe, Japan and Russia’s fertility are below replacement levels so there is every greying population. In fact there was a UN report titled – Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations? One of the conclusion is that US is not in that category perhaps because of immigration. Though this seems logical, there are arguments against this ; which can be dissected better by full-fledged sociologists.
12 · rob said
In fact, even my earlier reference to “Bobby” was humor, because Jindal chose his name from some Brady Bunch series.
Abhi,
what I meant was that if you’re not down with the SWPL-mandated consumption (goods, movies, books, ideologies), you’re not a ‘white person’ as SWPL would define it–therefore a desi kid aspiring to play a snare free-hand like John Longstreth of Origin, while not watching TV with his/her multiethnic crew and not shopping at Whole Foods is, by SWPL definition, not white.
Hsu seems to allow for a fuller explanation of ‘white’ than ‘stuff you consume.’
Who’s chilled about that? It ain’t us members of the YYY (Yankee, Yindoo, Yahudi)!
7 · Abhi said
Yes. As i mentioned before, it brings tears to one’s eyes to see the republican party embracing affirmative action so heartily. And you can even see this in action in their elections for RNC chairman.
Interesting writeup!
To draw a parallel, lets consider the Hindus in India. They are the majority community yet no political party really cares about them.
Minorities are truly the new majorities. But once they become the majorities, it will probably go the other way round!
prhaps the non-whiteness and third-worldiness appealed to mainstream white america but the story Q&A (movie was adapted from that novel) was definitely not white and the casting couldn’t have been white either
…why bash European countries? when will a white guy run China? Or a asian run mexico?
Thanks for clearing it up, Priya, I can understand it better now
About time!
In Europe, even after several generations, the divide between white and “other†seems stretched to a chasm.
1) Europe today is MUCH whiter than the United States was in 1950. In fact, many of the Europeans who are non-white in Europe would be officially white on the United States Census (Turks, Arabs, etc.). This doesn’t negate your point directly, but journalists who analogize Europe with the United States are often innumerate when they assume that the situations are demographically analogous.
2) The whole article is kind of dumb in my opinion. Just because there’s a lot of racial admixture in Brazil, and non-whites as defined by those with obvious non-white ancestry are the majority, does not mean that there is no racism in Brazil, or that whiteness is not still normatively privileged.
oh, and this is your weblog obviously, but i would like to add that i found the title a bit jarring and frankly offensive (using the term “Whitey”). i mean, if we’re talking about a world where white majority and hegemony is no longer assumed, perhaps one might consider that one day the sensitivities given to non-whites should also be applied to whites when it comes to terminology.
razib,
As always, thanks for your no-nonsense views!
Does somebody know if something happened to HMF. This is his dream post.
Does somebody know if something happened to HMF. This is his dream post.
no doubt either a white man or a woman is making his life hell. actually, a white woman. that would be the worst of both worlds 😉
LOL–I hope so!!
oh, and this is your weblog obviously, but i would like to add that i found the title a bit jarring and frankly offensive (using the term “Whitey”). i mean, if we’re talking about a world where white majority and hegemony is no longer assumed, perhaps one might consider that one day the sensitivities given to non-whites should also be applied to whites when it comes to terminology.
I’m glad it was you Razib, and not me who said it.
no doubt either a white man or a woman is making his life hell. actually, a white woman. that would be the worst of both worlds 😉
I thought the deal with HMF, was that he like some desi girl and she agreed to go out with him on one date. But at the date she was bored out of her mind, cause all he talked about was Malcom X and white privilege. HMF had to go to the bathroom and when he came back, she was gone. And a few days later he saw her with some average looking alt-rocker white guy and he has never been the same since.
When will an Italian woman run India?
23 · razib said
i don’t think the article says there will no be no racism (its thesis basically is that white isn’t cool, and it cherrypicks the evidence, but nevethless, it’s overall rhetoric is becoming quite commonplace). it claims white culture will no longer separate itself by appealing to its pre-eminence/sophistication/hipness/intellect:
so, the new white cultural icons (NASCAR, garth brooks, kid rock, larry the cable guy) will not be distinguished by their superiority/hipness, but by their celebration of white poverty and resentment against hip ‘rainbow’ america. which is different from the kind of elite, genteel white america
robminority strivers have looked up to 🙂Or, to put it another way, the article is saying: Long live skidmarks!
port commented at 5:07, rahul at 5:19..things that mke you go hmmmm?
34 · Manju said
And you at 5:28! What are the three of us doing together, Manju?
35 · Rahul said
well, all i know is i heard port singing: “here i am, stuck in the middle with you”
36 · Manju said
what? you were there too, manju? i guess i didn’t notice 😉
37 · portmanteau said
i was way in the back, where it was spacy
38 · Manju said
i guess you were in the closet. next time, don’t just watch; do.
i agree with an earlier poster: the title and continuous use of “whitey” is offensive. surely we can come up with a better term to describe caucasians.
i think the whole premise of this is wrong. it is more apt to say that whites in america have lost their culture and are seeking ways to relate to the world around them. european whites are still encased with fairly strong identities.
the beauty of america is that we do have a society of a myriad of cultures. it also means there is a loss of culture as the generations assimilate.
who is to say that the interracial “beige” generations won’t find themselves in the same situation as white americans do today?
i am a little bit troubled by this discussion, esp the use of such disparaging terms.
You know what’s funny, Suki Dhillon? It’s funny that your posts are as predictable, repetitive, monomaniacal and caricature-able as anyone else who posts anywhere on the internet, and your fixation with the guy called HMF only shows that you’re actually just the other side of the same coin as someone like him.
You and others are entitled to your position but I disagree. My title is meant to be over the top and sarcastic. “Whitey” also known as “The Man” is a fictional character and represents the archetype of priveleged white elite who is specifically trying to hold minorities down. It is not being used by me as a term to describe white people.
Children keep on track. Stop ragging on other commenters and focus on the subject of the post.
In my observations American caucasians generally seem happy with their heritage. One could joke that high on the list of SWL is anything with “European” cachet or anything perceived as being European…a hyphenated heritage or even Euro surname, clothing, cheeses and other foods, films, Zizek’ish intellectuals and definitely speaking a European language like French or Italian. I don’t know any who worry about whether to choose Nascar, being a “wigger” or having no identity.
Raxib wrote: The whole article is kind of dumb in my opinion
Yep. “Whiteness” isn’t going away, it’s just changing colour. And most whites were never white anyway (by Hsu’s standards).
Abhi said, (tongue in cheek?) “In the rhetorically titled, “The End of White America?†Hua Hsu of Vassar College examines a basket of issues surrounding the idea that it is no longer even mildly desireable to be “white†in America.” I would argue that it’s very wrong to make the idea of anyone undesireable. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
If you are continually told that one culture is less desirable than another, isn’t that the natural outcome? That young people feel like their culture isn’t desirable? Blow-back from cultural studies and cultural-pride multiculturalism?
Incidentally, that’s why I’m glad I grew up in a rural area. When there are so few people, everyone can stand out, sort of. Okay, I grew up in a college town in a rural area, but I stand by the ‘sometimes, it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond’ philosophy.
You know, truly cool people don’t give a damn about being cool. They just do their own thing. So, really, is this about whiteness, or the lameness of a certain type of earnest young college lefty?Yes, yes, righties can be totally lame, too, witness inviting Coulter to campus. You know what I mean, though. Campuses are awash with a sort of earnet, ‘oh, your culture is so cool, mine is so lame’ dufus-ness, or it was two decades ago when I was young. Is is still the case, young-uns? Hey, everyone is unique individual human being. Your individual experience counts and matters – that’s what the humanist in me says.
Shorter and to the point: it’s a shame people are being made to feel that being white is a bad thing, just as it is a shame if a person is made to feel bad for being brown. Am I taking abhi too seriously – is this one of his jokey posts intended for a laugh?
that Atlantic article comes under the genre of books like these – Big Sort Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-minded America is Tearing Us Apart…a sociologists/anthropologists’ productive field led by a booming multi-cultural society ?
Stuff White People Like is also majorly about class, namely the new yuppies aka hipsters. Most college graduates would probably identify with at least a few of those things, and it’s why I’m guessing many educated Indian-Americans (such as in this post) would think that they are ‘white on the inside’ after finding out that they have some of the same consumption habits or preferred tastes.
As for white kids having no culture, I think it depends on region and family bonds. In big families that are close and have traditions, I think they are less likely to feel that way. Based on what I’ve seen, it seems that these big close-knit extended families are found more often in the Midwest or in Texas. Staying close to family even in their youth is a priority, as opposed to Indians who encourage their children to take the best opportunities regardless of location and then buy a mansion and move the parents in to baby-sit. I think it’s possibly even partly for this reason, that family members tend to live in different places even if they’re all in the U.S., that Indian kids often have this ‘identity crisis,’ because they feel estranged from their relatives. As for the white kids who are the only child of divorced parents, well, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re the ones feeling lost and become “wiggers” or what have you.
Okay, I’ll stop after this trifecta, but what is that guy in abhi’s post nattering on about? Whites being culturally bereft? How on earth is ‘white culture’ whatever the heck that is, any less culturally rich than non-white culture, whatever the heck that is?
Seriously, sometimes I think all this academic discussion is just a way to write papers and be rewarded for bunk, instead of doing some other kind of scholarship.