America, the ever-evolving stew
The chart looks like that old “Price is Right” game, the one with the yodeling song. It’s called “Cliff Hangers,” and the guy just steadily keeps on going up.
Well, there’s no cliffhangers in this Census chart that shows exactly when non-whites will take over as the majority of the American population.
To be clear: According to Census estimates, by 2020, more than half of American children will be non-white, and more than half of the entire population will be nonwhite by 2044.
Well, we had a good run, right? We invented baseball and Playboy and all.
Having said that, “we” is a bit of a misnomer, as I’m Jewish, and as we well know, the Jews haven’t always exactly been considered part of “white America.” But trust me: I’m a white American. I’m often drunk, usually ornery, dance like I’m in need of orthodonture, think my shizz don’t stink, and have limited understanding of how to act around people who are different than me from a socioeconomic standpoint. Standard issue white American, folks.
Of course, it’s not just the Jews who’ve had a tough go of being part of white America. The Irish and Italian among us were not exactly welcomed with open arms. I mean, the KKK was routinely denouncing and attacking them. This was less than 100 years ago. And yes, this happened in New Jersey, where the Klan had huge numbers. In fact, the KKK held their largestever northeast Klonvocation in Hamilton in 1924.
And why was New Jersey such a hotbed of Klan activity? Those damn Jews, Italians, and Irish weren’t helping, I’ll tell you that much.
“It was a reaction against modernism in all its forms in the 1920s,” Bernard Bush, an East Windsor historian told The Trentonian back in 2000. “If you were a white Protestant in New Jersey at that time, you might feel disoriented and want to join an organization like the Klan. There’s a tremendous influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants. Blacks are moving north and starting to gain a measure of civil rights. There’s the influence of movies, modern standards of morality. There are flappers and a lot of drinking. The Klan was really a movement to just tell the 20th century: stop.”
Take that above paragraph, switch out a few things, and it sounds dangerously close to the MAGA America we’re living in right this second.
“It was a reaction against modernism in all its forms in the 2010s … If you’re white, you might feel disoriented … there’s a tremendous influx of immigrants… influence of movies, modern standards of morality … a lot of sex and drugs … movement to just tell the 21st century to stop.”
Before the emails and @ messages come flooding in, I’m not comparing Trump supporters to members of the KKK. To be even clearer: While I’m no Trump supporter, I do feel we need to slow the pace of immigration, I do sometimes feel adrift in the culture (not sure I’ve ever used the word “lit” correctly), and I do wish things would just stay the damn same. After all, I’m a white American! I won the geographic genetic lottery! I’d like to keep my winnings. Heck, I’d like to quit the game. Seriously: I have a job, a mortgage, a car.. I’d like to — to use another game show reference — freeze that card. Things are hunky-dory for me.
But alas, the game goes on, and in the coming years, whites are going to be the minority, and that’s pretty much the end of that. America will hiccup, maybe belch a few times, but she’ll roll on. It’s what America does.
Am I upset by this coming minority majority? Not if I spend more than .2 seconds thinking logically about it. America is an ever-evolving stew, and I recognize the hate the Jews, Irish, and Italians dealt with 100 years ago, only to become, combined, roughly 20 percent of the population. Things change in America, but it always ends up still being America.
If you’re not feeling it, no worries: I’m sure in another 100 years my great-grandson and future Trentonian columnist Jose Abdullah JacksonEdelstein will have to calm the masses about all those whites from England flooding our shores or something similar.