Minority

I can imagine a day when the term "minority" garners a questioning look from an average person on the street. For example, media are referring to Boston, Massachusetts as a "majority minority city". This is an overtly racialist term, because the term refers to a contrast between "white" people and "people of color", who comprise so-called minorities in numbers which create a joined majority of the city's population. My "minority", LGBT people, is not factored in this use of the word, since my minority crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries. This does contribute to my perspective on this issue.

The process of becoming politically powerful in government in order to change discriminatory laws has the eventual downside of propagating racialism after these categories become less socially and politically relevant. Those most impacted historically by racism are prone to becoming practical racists in seeking support and political power. They are prone to continue to exploit their own racial or ethnic identity over their actual worthiness and qualifications to govern. 

Media reports on our recent mayoral contest in Boston are rich with this racialism. There is no notable acknowledgment by the reporters that this is socially divisive. It is the same unconscious racialism that can foster racist behaviors which divide a diverse population rather than promote harmony and cooperation. Listening to the reports confirms there are still a White Boston, a Black Boston, an Hispanic Boston and an Asian Boston. However, as I walk through my own multiracial neighborhood, I know this is untrue for the city as a whole, but perhaps true for some sections of the city which have become racially or ethnically stagnant for a number of reasons, which include the racial and/or ethnic choices of their inhabitants to live in a racially/ethnically homogeneous neighborhood. 

A new way of encouraging inclusion will most likely evolve. However, those who have ascended to economic and social power by exploiting diversity will be loathe to participate in that conscious evolution. Their self-interests will likely trump their desire to disarm racialism as a political and financial weapon. Moving on, a slogan in the Obama campaigns, isn't easy. It does not mean the ascendancy of another minority class of power brokers over the diverse majority.