National Geographic released pictures in October 2013 by artist Martin Schoeller who who wished to illustrate the changing face of America. The images have been blogged and re-blogged, sparking fascinating discussion about the ever-evolving American face, and what we might look like as a people years from now.
Two adorable children, both clearly the blessing of more than one racial origin, gaze back at the viewer. All of Schoeller’s portraits in this project share this same racial blending, this hinting of the past without the clearly defined physical stereotypes we’ve come to accept as part of the world around us.
Posing the question of who America as a nation will become in terms of race is no small issue. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, whites will be a minority in this country as soon as 2042. Instead, we will become an amalgous mix of races, only distinguishable by the race of which we choose to identify.
With so much ambiguity regarding racial origins in our not-so-distant future, it’s fairly obvious there will be societal re-organization as we shift from a society that in part still assigns status based on race.
So what will that mean with regard to how we govern ourselves?
Consider the past two presidential elections, and how many millions of dollars have been spent wooing voters of color, specifically Hispanic voters. While the GOP has hoped in the past to gain the Hispanic vote by pushing a calling into focus of the patriarchal, Christian family structure and adjunctive legislation such as pro-life bills, ?as a result of the GOP failure to sufficiently motivate Hispanics to vote against Obama in the 2008 election there are now suggestions that the GOP should motivate their strongest support base into voting based on issues most held dear, and at times historically effective.
At least one conservative pundit is recommending that the GOP ignore voters of color altogether, and focusing on whites, the core of the Republican party. This leads us to the question of whether playing the white racial identity card will win elections.
“Whiteness,” the theory that the state of being white is not a pre-determined genetic set of parameters but rather an unspoken, invisible social construct based on the usually erroneous belief that a person is entitled to a certain status and privileges in American society based on racial identity. In other words, if you identify as white, the reason is most likely you appear to be white, or what is taught to us as a white appearance, ?as opposed to being genetically of Caucasian ancestry.
What is ‘white?’ There have been attempts to lend legal parameters to the meaning of what it is to be a white person in the past. In 1910, Tennessee adopted as law a definition of “Negro” as outlined in what is known as the “One Drop Rule“, meaning any person who had any African ancestry at all was considered a Negro. Before this time, people of mixed ancestry were largely absorbed into white society based on appearance, or even if they has one quarter African ancestry, depending on the state. After the passage of Tennessee’s law, other states such as Florida amended their ‘fraction’ laws to equate ‘one drop’ of African ‘blood’, or ancestry. The laws have never been repealed, though they no longer determine whether a person can be denied housing, the right to marry another person of a different race, or whether they can be forced to undergo sterilization procedures against their will.
What determines whiteness in the modern era is whether you identify as white. About 4 percent of the US white population has black ancestry, and according to researchers at 23AndMe, the average African American is approximately 77% African.?Who we are and who we see ourselves to be is changing more quickly than at any point in our history.
None of this bodes well for the Republican party, who is at odds with how to attract the minority vote – the minority that is quickly becoming the majority. As the birth rate for minorities crests white births, and as more adults raised to think of themselves as white become disenfranchised from the GOP’s platform of white pride and religious fundamentalism, identifying as non-white, how will the GOP continue to hold any relevance, even in the short term?
An article published recently by psychologists Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson illustrates how fear might be enough to motivate people who usually identify as inpendents to swing right in their voting, should depending on how the fact of impending shifts in racial demographics is presented to people.
Whether the politics of “whiteness as rightness” will be enough to sway White House elections remains to be seen. However, the evidence in favor of such a strategy, based on historical successes as well as current public mindset seems to be present.
?h/t Washington Post
