Who Decides What Constitutes a Minority?

The concept of "minorities" in a political sense has always bemused me. Following are my somewhat random thoughts on the subject:

How can a political party that depends on a majority for its power be a true friend of a minority? They can't. They can only be a true friend to a collection of minorities with common interests. And that collection has to be large enough to constitute a majority. But if this collection of minorities has sufficiently common interests and numbers to place a particular party and president in power are they truly a minority? The mathematician in me says no.

Since slavery, the most racist act committed by this country was the inclusion of all citizens of African descent in a single group. That group is the "black minority." It doesn't matter how rich or poor you are or how educated or uneducated you are; if your ancestors were African you are in that group. It doesn't matter if you are among the most poor, uneducated and disadvantaged in the land; if your skin is white you are not in that group. It is a blatant classification of a large segment of our population on their ethnicity alone.  Jeff Foxworthy's classification of rednecks makes more sense; he specifies hundreds of criteria, each of which can qualify you for membership in the group.

African-Americans are not alone; Hispanics, for example, have their own group. But why should Hispanics be classified separately from blacks? Aren't their needs similar to those of blacks? I would think that the needs among blacks or among Hispanics taken separately are at least as different as the needs of both taken together. The answer is that combining the minorities might be politically threatening; if they're all combined they may no longer constitute a minority. But an astute, populist political party can claim that it is their duty now to represent the interests of the new majority.

It seems to me that all this thrashing about over the supposed under-represented minorities is much ado about nothing. What happened to representing all the people all the time? And treating everyone equally?

(Perhaps I shouldn't raise the question posed in the title of this post; Obama may want to create a new White House Czar for that purpose.)

Comments

Make a comment: