When the Majority Becomes the Minority

Racial demographics and its alarming effects on political behavior.

The United States is undergoing a demographic shift.

In 2012, the Census Bureau noted that nonwhite births outpaced white births for the very first time. A year later, they reported that more whites were dying than were being born. A year after that, the Census Bureau projected that whites would be a minority by the year 2044.

There are caveats to this data and its accompanying alarmist headlines. First, while whites will be a minority of the population, they will still be the largest single ethnicity. Second, the methodology of gathering racial data has been scrutinized, particularly what constitutes certain races and how multiracial people self-report their racial identity. Last, the projections for future immigration levels are just that — projections.

Regardless, the impending racial changes facing the United States seem inevitable. The research suggests that a person’s own race, when in the majority, is often dormant. But when learning of impending minority status, his or her view of race becomes salient and potentially weaponized.

A pair of political scientists, Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson, have studied the effects of impending minority status on…