American Makeover
It had been expected for weeks and months, but its arrival on August 12 – a chronicle of an evolution foretold - announced itself like a thunderclap: According to results of the 2020 census, the United States of America is experiencing unprecedented growth in its minority communities, with black and brown populations showing robust growth, and numbers of white Americans growing more slowly, so much so that the nation’s white majority is the smallest it’s been in more than 200 years.
Data from the official U.S. Census 2020, the decennial survey of the nation’s people prescribed in the Constitution, finds that the United States experienced panoramic change in its demographic makeup, with its white non-Hispanic population dropping to 57.8 percent (191 million), an 8.6 percent decline since the 2010 census (196 million), and the lowest percentage of white Americans since 1790. In addition to that, the Hispanic population of the country has grown to 18.7 percent, African Americans grew their numbers to 12.4 percent, and the Asian population increased to 6 percent.
The census data reveals how, now more than ever, American life is shot through with diversity as an increasingly baseline experience. The major unknown is whether the nation is prepared for the browner, blacker diversity it can’t escape.
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Indeed, in the run-up to the data release and in the weeks after, we’ve seen powerful pushback against the data’s implications, with concerted resistance to voting and reproductive rights, and hysterical pronouncements against critical race theory by legislators around the country. ...
Image credits: Lee statue: Still from Generic News & Information video. Swamp logo: Copyright 2021 Creatd.
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