Conservatives Fear Discrimination Against Whites

[hadrons]

In June and July, Latino Decisions conducted a national poll for the Center for American Progress and PolicyLink. The poll's sample was especially large -- 2,943 adults, including 1,319 non-Hispanic whites. In one question, respondents were asked to give their "best guess" about the percentage of racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. population.

Every racial group overestimated the size of the nonwhite population, which in reality is about 37 percent. "Asians had the most accurate estimates," the survey report stated, "with respondents estimating an average of 43 percent -- followed by whites with an average of 48 percent, Latinos with an average of 50 percent, and African Americans with an average of 53 percent."

....

This is the immigration vise in which Republicans find themselves. Through the birth of the Tea Party to Obama phones and Obamacare, fear of losing out to the "47 percent" has pervaded and largely defined conservative politics since President Barack Obama's 2008 election. Much of the conservative base views demographic change as zero sum, with whites on the losing end.

Immigration and race are inexorably linked in American political culture and always have been. As John Higham wrote in his history of American nativism, "Strangers in the Land," American white Protestants considered themselves heirs of "the supreme Anglo-Saxon virtue, a gift for political freedom," which included a "unique capacity for self-government." By muddying the racial composition of the nation, immigration not only jeopardizes white privilege, it risks undermining the foundations of freedom itself.

Racial animosity is only one among several threads of opposition to immigration, of course, including economic rationales rooted in concern for the working class. But race has an especially visceral power. The declining white share of the population already has many conservatives rattled. If it declines more rapidly due to mass legalization of undocumented immigrants, many conservatives figure it can only be bad for them and their vision of the good life.

....

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-21/conservatives-fear-discrimination-against-whites?cmpid=yhoo

I have to be careful about posting too much 'fair-use' experts - I hope I get away with what I have because it explains the narrative: a large number of Whites - who already believe they're close to being a minority - also believe that they'll be discriminated against by the new minority-majority.

[yeoman6987]

1. Goodness

For whites to be discriminated against, we would have to start in 2014 and not finish until about 2400 (literally) to even come close to the discrimination that African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims and others have felt. I am White but I am seeing more of these type of stories. I find them insulting quite frankly.

[maryellen99]

2. Ever since PBO took office

I've heard that and that every instance of black on white crime is now a hate crime.

[Democracyinkind]

3. The fear of discrimination of whites...

... just about proves that most whites are actually - if only on a subconscious level - quite aware of how discriminatory our society has been and still is against non-whites, since this projection must be grounded in something more than just the fear of the "other", IMHO.

[Igel]

6. That's what hypervigilance gets you.

When it's equally shared, or nearly equally shared, we'll have real problems. We're not there yet.

But as more and more people are more and more vigilant about more and more differences and distinctions, everybody has some grounds for hypervigilance. When they decide that those grounds are worth defending, well, we have Stand Your Ground in many more ways than just use of firearms while standing on dirt or concrete.

[Scuba]

4. I can't imagine where they would get the idea that a minority might be subjected to discrimination.

They've been denying such a thing for generations.

[NuttyFluffers]

5. fear me! i shall add chili sauce atop your KFC in the dead of night...

i shall record Golden Girls marathons over your tivoed sports!

when you wake, the only grain you'll have for breakfast -- will be rice! and not in cereal form!

shorts wearing will be banned when it is 40 and below!

there'll be no more commemorative collector plates!

[FrodosPet]

8. Which part do I fear?

The only sports I watch are the occasional Tigers or U of M game (and I watch them live), I like rice, I have old man legs that I spare the world from when it is 80, and I have never owned a Franklin Mint anything.

Plus I am friendly, intelligent, and articulate with good work habits, so people of color have and will hire me.

So I guess I DON'T have anything to fear.

Incompetent, mean spirited, greedy and lazy people, on the other hand...I can see why they would be scared of losing a tiny bit of privilege.

[Johonny]

7. Whites have been discriminated on for years

A) The "white" definition as a group keeps expanding so former groups like the Irish and Catholics are now more accepted in "white" society where only 2 generations ago they were much more discriminated upon. My grandmother's head would probably explode to know the Supreme Court is heavily Catholic and yet heavily conservative.

B) And of course the white poor population is still heavily discriminated against.

The problem with white discrimination is that a large percentage of "white" votes go for it and heavily promote it. White America has no problem hating on White America any more than they have a problem hating on any other race.

The white majority or minority is itself a myth. White has really never been a very inclusive racial category in this country. There is still a "white" pecking order in American society. Although one would argue it has less to do with religion and the European country of your ancestors and has much more to do with wealth than it did even in the 1970s, but it is still there. One could argue conservatives have always used fear of others getting ahead of you as an effective tool to keep the underclass relatively poor. The key to the political strategy is to make you imagine you are part of us against them, while they keep secret from you that at the highest levels they see you as just another them. Oddly enough this works and has worked for a long time.