The Monochrome Society

Abstract

Various demographers and other social scientists have been predicting for years that the end of the white majority in the United States is near, and that there will be a majority of minorities. CNN broadcast a special program on the forthcoming majority of people of color in America.(1) President Clinton called attention to this shift in an address at the U.C. San Diego campus on a renewed national dialogue about race relations.(2) His argument is that such a dialogue is especially needed as a preparation for the forthcoming end of the white majority, to occur somewhere in the middle of the next century. In his year 2000 State of the Union, Clinton claimed that "within 10 years there will be no majority race in our largest state, California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in America. In a more interconnected world, this diversity can be our greatest strength."(3) White House staffer Sylvia Mathews provides the figures as 53% white and 47% a mixture of other ethnic groups by 2050.(4) Pointing to such figures, Clinton asks rhetorically if we should not act now to avoid America's division into "separate, unequal and isolated" camps