300,000,000 Is this racist?

If not racist, is it fear mongering?

Or is it just an unbiased article reflecting America today?

Mr. or Ms 300,000,000 will likely be a person of color, anyway.

The milestone baby could have been anyone, of any race but no... it is a hispanic baby. Why is that?

this thread.

So the article isn't about the 300,000,000 milestone approaching, it's really about the make up of the 'new' America.

But making an issue on immigration like hispanics are the only ones trying to enter the US. Anyone could be the milestone and that is what makes this article biased somehow. First hispanics are taking all the jobs (at least they are not saying that hispanics are lazy!) and now they are overpopulating the US.

There's two borders and people talk like if there's only one border.

The article says that "Chances are it will be hispanic". The point is not that that is a bad or good thing, but that the majority of new arrivals and new births in the US are hispanic, therefore #300,000,000 being hispanic is a strong likelihood. Just as chances are good that the 120,000,000th baby in Japan will be Japanese (in reality this is a moot point since Japan's population is decreasing, but you get my drift, right.



I don't think its racist to report that the makeup of our society is changing. This change is not by accident, you know. Republicans and Democrats decades ago quietly agree to do nothing about illegal immigration, especially at the level of the employers where it might matter. In fact, it was George Herbert Herbert Bush who upped the quota of LEGAL immigrants to an all-time high of over 1 million a year. SUre, both parties, esp. the repugs, will use the issue as a wedge and a campaign gimmick, but neither of them have a remote interest in stopping the flow. In fact they are depending on it. They depend on it for cheap labor for their wealthy patrons. They depend on it for the economic growth they generate. Look at Japan for an example of how negative population growth tends to slow down an economy.

I personally don't care that America is becoming more hispanic. Today's immigrants' grandkids will be so Americanized and consumerized, so what's the difference? The way the racists feel today is the way the WASPS felt about the Irish or the Italians 100 years ago, but they are as American as apple pie now.

The only thing that bugs me about it is that A. more people means more hideous suburbs and traffic and B. the illegals provide a source of cheap labor and devalue ALL labor at the lower-end, giving poor working people less leverage to ask for a decent paycheck. It's like the opposite effect of how rising union wages tend to elevate all wages in a given industry, even the non-union workers'.


The Mexican's should be very comfortable in the US, since the republicans are quickly restructuring our economic hierarchy in the exact image of Mexico's.


Poor saps thought they were moving to a country with a middle class.

I read it and it does sound biased to me. I accept that it does not sound to you, but to me it is. This was posted earlier and the first few people who answered the post were actually biased towards the article (biased against how bad it is that hispanics are taking over).

I guess it all depends on the discussion. Maybe I would not thought nothing of it but it changed the moment someone was biased against hispanics. So, there.

Almost every article in an American news source is biased - written from the perspective of an American, a country whose political "center" would be considered far right wing in most countries. This article is probably written with the biases of a middle-class white American, as are almost all news articles. But that doesn't mean that the article displays overt or covert racism. I think it simply lays out the demographic changes that are occurring in a very matter-of-fact way. It's neither positive nor negative in its interpretation of the stats, and to me, that's basically good reporting.

As for the bias, it's almost impossible to get rid of that. Like asking people not to be human and not identify with their own ethnic, social, or national groups in any way.

I live in Japan right now, and I can tell you that all Japanese reporting has a distinct Japanese bias. The only time it bothers me is when they talk about "rising crime by foreigners", etc. and they ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS fail to mention that more than 95% of the crime in Japan is committed by Japanese. Okay, sure, foreigners only represent 1% of Japanese population, so the foreigner crime rate is disproportionate, but reporting all the time that crimes by foreigners is rising, but not reminding people that their chance of being victimized by a foreigner is actually much lower than the risk of being victimized by a Japanese, seems to be a deliberate attempt to demonize foreigners. But I don't dare hope to erase all bias in reporting. It will NEVER happen. I just want to stop the really bad, over-the-top instances of it.


By the way, I didn't "tell you what to think". I just don't think you read the sentence in question carefully, judging by the way you interpreted it as saying something it is not.

The person you were talking with claims to be against the right's position, but has swallowed their kool-aid nonetheless. Notice that she/he thinks that the right's agenda is "immigration/immigration/immigration". The brainwashing worked. Immigration is not even *on* the right's agenda.

Here is the right's agenda:

Help the rich make more money at the expense of the poor.




That is *IT*. PERIOD. Everything else they do is a tool to that end. The way they use homophobia and racism is all about mobilizing dumb white/Christian voters to go vote for them, but they couldn't give a crap about those voters unless they are rich. Same with immigration, or abortion, or any of the other "issues" they constantly squawk about but strangely never seeem to do anything about despite having huge majorities in both houses of congress and having the White House. It's all a game to them. Keep the rubes (and that includes US) focused on the queers, or the abortions or the picture of Willie Horton, and all the while you can loot the treasury, repeal the estate tax and have a grand old time. As long as democrats and the media are as fooled by the charade as the GOP lemming voters are, we're sunk.

I did not thought anything of the article until this discussion happened (see my response number 13 in this post).

The article states of the overpopulation which should be an important issue, but why is important who makes the milestone? I just wonder Why the Who is important. It just take you away from the issue of overpopulation.

not the way it is written. Some people will take it as such because they are more sensitive and confuse race-awareness with racism.

However, while this is not racist, it is going to trigger a racist response in people who are already bigoted.

But to me, this is just a statistical report. I think, "hmmm, oh that's interesting." Then I think, "hmm, wish I'd paid more attention in high school Spanish class."

Then I don't spend much time thinking about it at all, because there are far more pressing matters than demographics.

Including the part about Spanish class. I used to entertain my brother's children, born to the woman he married in Chile, with my impeccably bad espanol.

"Pasame el pan, por favor. Y la mantiquilla."

The "majority" in this country has always vilified immigrants.

At least we should be happy that some people still want to come here and still beleive it is the land of opportunity. Because many of us are pessimistic about our future as world leaders... maybe we need more of the world to come to us and help shape the future. If you ask kids to day... they don't care that they go to school with different races. They don't care if they know other languages (if anything they ask to learn diff. words in diff. languages, especially the swear words.)

They are the future. Look to them and see what America will be. They are not concerned with Immigration. They are not concerned with learning different languages and cultures they think that its cool.. Let it be old people.

at least that's the way it feels to me, kind of feeding into the unspoken paranoia about a majority minority nation.

an AMERICAN!

of probable statistical fact can make it racist. It just is. Es la verdad y no mas o menos. How long does one have to be a US citizen before they cease to become a "Hispanic" anyhow? Three generations? Is an affinity for la cocina mesoamericana an indicator? By the way, Lusitanians and Spanish nationals are not considered "Hispanic," rather "White of European origin!"
So Martin Sheen (born Martin Estevez of a Spanish father and Irish mother in the US is not Hispanic).
Fidel Castro barely makes the cut, as his father was born in Spain, but his Cuban nationality makes him de jure "Hispanic!"
So, the color of Northermost America is changing along with the second language. Guess what, societies that have ossified have failed, witness the Persian and Ottoman Empires, ditto the Western Roman. Its failure to embrace the Germans and Celts as coequals led to its downfall and its removal to Constantinople. Once the Ottomans lost the dynamnic nature of the early empire and turned to navel gazing and status quo and keeping the various millets ("nations" or ethnic/religious groups} as units to use to play against one another, nationalism won. Ditto for Russia and Austria-Hungary.
Countries such as France (until recently) who have embraced ethnic diversity have been successful as nation states.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time.

i think you'd have to already dislike hispanic people to read anything negative into this.
it's stats, and trends. i'm kinda amazed the population has gone up 1/3 in 30 years. wow.

... then virtually every DUer is a racist. The same goes for any analysis that portrays economics, birth rates, infant mortality, migration, or politics.

Making such claims/attacks, I believe, trivializes the evils of racism and other forms of bigotry.

have posted the thread.

Is this a fact?

"it's a good bet the milestone baby - or immigrant - will be Hispanic."

Considering the rest of the article goes on to say the actual 300000000 will be randomly chosen based on averages that line is anything but a fact.

the statement is mathematically correct.

And I did take it as a statement of mathematical probability, not one of racism.

You still see no bias I guess and that's all the op was asking.

Thank you for your response.

The statement said "it's a good bet the milestone baby - or immigrant - will be Hispanic."

Well if hispanics are by far the biggest ethnic group of new population growth, at almost 50%, then a statement saying it's a good bet is indeed a fact. If it is more likely that the baby would be hispanic, based on probability, then any other ethnic group, than would it NOT be a fact that it would be a good bet? Do you think it would be a bad bet?

The article didn't declare "because they make up almost 50% of new population growth the 300,000,000th baby will definitely be hispanic". If it had, that would be turning probability into fact within that context and I would be in agreement with you in the argument of bias. But that isn't what we have here. We have a statement saying that the ethnic group with the strongest statistical probability is a good bet as being the one that reaches 300,000,000. In that context, it is logically, mathematically and common sensefully factual.

That would be a likely probability. Never a fact.

proved my point.

That's all the article said, was that it was a likely probability. If that statement of yours is factual, than so too is the article's statement.

I'm glad we see eye to eye now.

colored glasses. someone's already "framed" how they see things.
:shrug:

by those not subjected to racism. But who likes to accept that there's racism? No one.

trouble is, along with the true racists, the fire is being fueled by people who can read racism into any statement based on the placement or not of certain keywords or phrases. If there is a mention in a statement, article, etc. that includes any reference to a person or group by ethnicity, even an observation based on some general odds, trends, or statistics, racism will be charged, even if it's forced upon the issue. The truth is, in regular America, if you read that statement in front of a group of your average American's, then tried to explain your reasons for charging racism, those average American's would likely look at you like: :wtf: That's because the thought of this being a racist statement probably would not have entered their mind if the idea had not been planted there in the first place. One reason there cannot be any real forward discussion on the subject. Just my opinion, and personal observation. Thanks.
quickesst

This is why I am sick of PC, just because a fact can be twisted for a agenda is no excuse to censor the fact.

That there's overpopulation or that the 300,000,000th person would be hispanic?

The first is a fact, the second a probability. If it is a probability, why even mention it? Probabilities aren't facts. It is like saying all Mexicans eat tacos and wear sombreros. That indeed could be biased towards a particular group, without evidence.

Latin American ancestry.

that are born in the US or that are given new citizenship? Two different things.

in every article you find on population growth, they break it down and this is the big news.
it's the RW wedge issue bullshit that's in the air that changes the perception for some people.
but historically, this is not some new racist slant.

It's just a statement of probability about a superficial difference between people.

It mentions ethnicity. The two are not interchangable.

An ethnicity is a group of people with the same culture. Ethnicity shouldn't be confused with Race, you can have white, black, and amerindian, and mixed-race Hispanics, you can have black, white, or south asian Brits, etc.

Well, it's true. The chances are that it will be a hispanic. That's where a lot of the growth comes from. Whites don't reproduce as much while hispanics do. Just a fact. And not all that bad a one, if I may say so.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I guess... Glad to be here.

Conclusion: Young people are responsible for the spread of AIDS.

It's the implied conclusion that's the not-so hidden message: Hispanics are causing overpopulation in the USA.

Much like the "fact" that the Irish are 7 times more prone to alcoholism than those of Mediterranean origin. (I'm Irish). Conclusion: The Irish are causing most drunk-driving accidents.

Fact: A higher percentage of blacks are unemployed than any other race. Conclusion: Blacks are lazy.

Fact: Among American Indians age 25 to 34, the rate of violent crime victimizations was more than 2½ times the rate for all persons the same age. Conclusion: American Indians are natural born victims.

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain

Great points.

Fact: A higher percentage of blacks are unemployed than any other race. Conclusion: Blacks are lazy.

Alternative conclusion: more needs to be done to promote employment in black communities.

I am troubled that the basic presumption is that data should not be repeated/reported for fear that all those unenlightened types might draw an unpleasant conclusion.

The stats are demographics - nothing more. The fact that the population is about to crest 300mm is of concern, the fact that the immigrant population is growing faster than our economy can support it is too.