This one from the AP “Whites now minority in 1 in 10 counties.” Couldn’t this headline also be “Whites majority in 9 of 10 counties”?
And it is really funny given the discussion that Rory and I were having in this thread. I was telling him how there are many places in the northern tier of this country that are nearly all white. He was asking me if it really was that rare to see a black person in (rural) areas of the north. Here’s the comment I left. You should check out the graphs in the pdf files:
It’s not so much rare as it is concentrated into segregated areas in and around major cities. Check out page 6 of this pdf file; the map is the percent white for various counties (some would say it underestimates % white because it include Latinos who identify as white, but it demonstrates the general point). Look how many counties are 90-99% white–notice how most of them are in the north. In many states like Ohio, you can spot the counties where the bigger cities are because they are not darker blue.
Now check out page 6 of this pdf file. Look how many counties have fewer than 5% black. For that matter look how many states have no counties where more than 4.9% of the population is black–Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Hawaii. You have a few states where all but one or two counties are less than 5% black, but the dark blue counties are pretty much all in the south.
Now I was specifically talking about Blacks, not people of color broadly. But there are still many counties, probably the majority where people of color are less than 10% of the populations. Even the graph, pictured in association with the article, could just as easily have made my point about how many counties are very white.
If you read the article, you would like there is a huge Latino invasion, but is 1 in 10 impressive. I don’t think so.
Oh, counties. That makes more sense.
I don’t think it’s a particularly dumb headline. I think that the purpose is to highlight a change in that previously the number of counties that are “majority-minority” would have been lower. Your proposed headline doesn’t carry the sense of that change.
With the MSM, the glass is always one-tenth empty and not nine-tenths full.
It’s gotta be “news” to be a headline.
Whites holding, or maintaining, or having, power is not news. Whites having 9/10 majority is still not news.
Nonwhites gaining power is HUGE news. Minorities gaining even 1/10 majority is HUGE news.
Actually (and I may well be reading this wrong) the more I think about it the better it seems. The alternative news-worthy headline that I would expect to see would be:
“POC (or appropriate ethnic group) now majority in ____ county!”
And that seems a lot more alarmist. By citing the white majority, it creates less of a “fight the takeover” backlash.
If you are trying to avoid sending a flurry of people to join the local pro-white group, then of these four headlines:
Whites hold 9 of 10 counties!
Whites minority in 1 of 10 counties!
Whites lose majority in Alas County!
POC gain majority foothold in Alas county!
the first is the best but IMO not realistic. But the second is way, way, better than the other two.
And speak of the devil, the NYT has this very headline:
“Minorities Now Form Majority in One-Third of Most-Populous Counties”
“POC (or appropriate ethnic group) now majority in ____ county!”
Actually, there’s a story about this in the Chicago Tribune (or Sun-Times) today. Cook County is now 45% White. 49% of it is about evenly split between Black and Hispanic. I didn’t see a breakdown of the other 6%; I don’t know how they are counting the Asian population.
My county had one of the most rapid growths in terms of Latinos, according to the article. I received several copies of this article this morning. My county still has rapid growth overall, but this is the first article I’ve seen in a while that highlighted the growth in the Latino population.
how about:
“whites still minority of world’s population, but world seems to be coping” ?
ONOES!!1!!
White people no longer have 100% lock on 100& of the counties!!!
You’d think this wasn’t a democracy, where all citizens are equal under the law…
Regardless of what neighborhood you live in.
Yes! And Black History Month takes up one whole month out of twelve! And it’s the SHORTEST one, too!
Sheesh.
It is interesting that this was on NPR. They (like the rest of the MSM) only like to talk about us minorities when we get arrested or when we do something that makes White people feel better about themselves.
Pingback: Feministe » Link Lovin’