Whiteshift

Whiteshift, white racial shift, or sometimes called white decline is the demographic and social phenomenon of white majorities gradually declining to become a minority group, sometimes labelled majority minority, and increasingly of mixed race heritage, due to consensual intermarriage and natural demographic change in the Western world. The term "whiteshift" was coined predominantly by Birkbeck College professor Eric Kaufmann, considered a specialist both in political demography and demography, and his 2018 book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. The phenomenon had also been described as white decline or racial shift previously and has since been variously discussed, analyzed, and academically researched as a political and demographic phenomenon.[1][2]

Definition

White decline or white racial shift, abbreviated frequently to whiteshift (sometimes white shift or white-shift)[3] is the demographic decline of populations of white people, usually in the Western world, as defined by various national census bureaus, governmental organizations, or as mentioned in scholarly or journalistic works. The concept can be referred to pan-regionally, continentally (e.g. North America), or within a district or other local level.[4]

Background

In 2014, Thomas B. Edsall, discussing a Public Religion Research Institute survey designed "to assess anxieties concerning the changing racial makeup of the country", analyzed research which had concluded that "making this racial shift salient could bring more moderate White Americans into the Republican Party, as well as increase turnout among White Americans who already consider themselves Republicans.[5]

Historian Michael Burleigh has drawn attention to an aspect of whiteshift, which outlines how mixed-race people and public figures, such as politicians Iain Duncan Smith in the UK, Dutch politician Geert Wilders and US Senator Ted Cruz, will increasingly become integrated into white majorities.[6] In 2018, demographer Dowell Myers wrote that, under an exclusive definition of whiteness, such as being solely of European descent, "whites are indeed in numerical decline" in the US. Also referencing congressman Ted Cruz, in relation to shifting classification of white, as well as Meghan Markle, Myers analyzed the trend toward recognizing an inclusive, multiracial definition for white majorities when factoring in the demographic phenomenon.[7]

In 2019, academic Ghassan Hage proposed how the fear-based distortion and political capitalization of the demographic phenomenon, provided the ongoing danger of fueling extremism and propaganda, such as that involved in the Christchurch mosque shootings.[8] A Gothenburg-Post-analysis of the decline, referencing journalist Ivar Arpi's commentary of what the publication described as a demographic threat in Sweden, identified Arpi's description and modelling as making use of whiteshift theory.[9] Political analyst Michael Barone has written of his "cautious optimism" for the concept to occur in a societally stable and positive model.[10]

The concept denotes as much importance to the converging of racial identities into the dominant culture, as the data-led component of the future numerical minority-status of white people. The author of 2018's Whiteshift has been reported to have stressed the importance, in his view, of exploring the concept in general discouse, to facilitate both conservatives and cosmopolitans experiencing the social phenomenon of whiteshift as a positive development.[11]

Simon Fraser University professor, Paul Delany, wrote in 2019 that more extreme societal polarization could provide a challenge to the political acceptance of gradual whiteshift.[12] In 2020, Spiked magazine referenced increasing use of whiteshift, as a concept and explanatory driving force, to describe political upheavals and electoral upsets in the West.[13]

Academic study

Racial shift condition

In 2014, professors Jennifer Richeson and Maureen Craig published research, which among various conclusions, outlined white racial shift condition.[14] Their study showed how white people in the US, who were informed of the gradual reduction of the country's white majority, were more likely to demonstrate higher racial intergroup hostility due to the perception of a demographic threat.[15] The study, which was described by Pacific Standard as demonstrating how "the coming racial shift evokes higher levels of both explicit and implicit racism on the part of white Americans",[16] has been analyzed by sociologist Mary C. Waters, who concurred that demographic projections, and their portrayal in media, are proportionately linked to concern among some white Americans and subsequent increase in racial tensions.[17]

Other studies

In a 2016 study, psychologist Brenda Major conducted research which showed that white Americans, who strongly identified with their racial group, and were exposed to demographic change of reduced number of whites, or provided "the racial shift reminder", were more likely to vote for Donald Trump during the Republican Party presidential primaries than any other candidate.[18]

Published in Social Forces in 2018, two studies conducted by sociologists Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, showed how telling white Americans that the United States was becoming demographically majority non-white, increased their criticism of welfare.[19]

In 2019, separating the concept from Kaufmann's book, the Centre for European Policy Studies analyzed the prediction of future mixed-race majorities in the West, describing it as rooted in evidence for the occurrence of whiteshift, rather than a "futuristic end of identity" or pan-racial society.[20] In 2020, a Population and Development Review journal piece explored the conflict in the conception of whiteshift as both a demographic phenomenon and cultural identity transition. Citing US Census Bureau statistics, the use of precision in demography was demonstrated to be somewhat compromised by the "blurring of ethnic boundaries", a factor acknowledged in the theory of whiteshift.[21]

References
  1. Scot J. Zentner; Michael C. LeMay (2019). Party and Nation: Immigration and Regime Politics in American History. Lexington Books. p. 152. ISBN 978-1498543088.
  2. "Why we need to prepare for a more turbulent future". Evening Standard. October 25, 2018. Ethnic majorities in the West are undergoing ‘whiteshift’, a transition from an unmixed to a mixed state. This is a process that is in its early stages and will take a century to complete.
  3. Adeela Naureen (April 15, 2019). "Populism and identity crisis in the West". The Nation. Elaborating on the issue of White Shift, Kaufman eluded to two significant factors, one that the west was now getting into the start of the process of decline of White majority
  4. Gene Demby (August 16, 2014). "Code Switch Roundup: On Race, Policing And Ferguson". NPR. The dramatic racial shift happened over the past few decades: The city was 85 percent white in 1980, but by 2010, after many white families moved to other suburbs, the town was about two-thirds African-American.
  5. Thomas B. Edsall (May 20, 2014). "The Great White Hope". The New York Times.
  6. Michael Burleigh. "Majority Report" (Issue 470 ed.). Literary Review.
  7. Dowell Myers (May 19, 2018). "The demise of the white majority is a myth". The Washington Post. These stories of white decline obscure the ongoing changes to America’s color line, and they serve only to divide. Fortunately, the white American public seems far more content with the more inclusive future that is actually destined to emerge.
  8. Ghassan Hage (April 15, 2019). "Fears of 'white decline' show how a minor dent to domination can be catastrophic for some". The Guardian. Through the deployment of a more apocalyptic imaginary of white decline as in the manifesto of Christchurch’s white ethno-nationalist mass murderer, there is an increasingly available literature portraying people of white European origins as being in a state of decline.
  9. Hynek Pallas (June 30, 2019). "Don't take away racism". Göteborgs-Posten.
  10. Michael Barone (May 20, 2019). "Michael Barone: Will 'whiteshift' save America from ethnic strife?". Omaha World-Herald. Will Kaufmann's optimistic "whiteshift" scenario ever happen? The current political brouhaha is discouraging, but our history provides grounds for cautious optimism.
  11. "Event details". York Festival of Ideas. 6 June 2019. Author and political scientist Eric Kaufmann explains why one of the most crucial challenges of our time is to enable conservatives as well as cosmopolitans to view whiteshift as a positive development.
  12. Paul Delany (March 24, 2019). "White Noise". Los Angeles Review of Books. It is hard to imagine how ever-fiercer polarization might yield to “whiteshift,” in Kaufmann’s sense of the integration of immigrants into a nominally white cultural norm.
  13. Fraser Myers (February 25, 2020). "The dangerous war on 'whiteness'". Spiked. Bestselling books talk of White Fragility and Dying of Whiteness. Political upheavals are said to be driven by Whiteshift.
  14. "Trump understands what many miss: people don't make decisions based on facts". Vox Media. February 8, 2017. In the “racial shift” condition, white study participants read about how by 2050, minorities will represent the majority of people in the United States. In the control condition, participants read about a neutral subject. Those who read about demographic change expressed less warm feelings toward minorities.
  15. More Diverse Yet Less Tolerant? How the Increasingly Diverse Racial Landscape Affects White Americans Racial Attitudes (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin ed.), SAGE Publications, 2014, Perceived threat to Whites’ societal status mediated the effects of the racial shift information on explicit racial attitudes. These results suggest that rather than ushering in a more tolerant future, the increasing diversity of the nation may instead yield intergroup hostility. Implications for intergroup relations and media framing of the racial shift are discussed.
  16. "Notion of Minority-Majority Nation Exacerbates White Racism". Pacific Standard. March 18, 2014.
  17. "Why the Announcement of a Looming White Minority Makes Demographers Nervous". The New York Times. November 22, 2018. Their findings, first published in 2014, showed that white Americans who were randomly assigned to read about the racial shift were more likely to report negative feelings toward racial minorities than those who were not. They were also more likely to support restrictive immigration policies and to say that whites would likely lose status and face discrimination in the future.
  18. "White fear of demographic change is a powerful psychological force". Vox Media. January 28, 2017. “Among very highly identified Whites ... the racial shift reminder shifted them one point more likely to vote for Trump on a 7 point scale — from about a 2.5 to about a 3.5,” Major explains in an email.
  19. "Study: telling white people they'll be outnumbered makes them hate welfare more". Vox Media. June 7, 2018. The threat of white decline appeared to prompt whites to turn against welfare, with minimal effect on everyone else.
  20. "CEPS Event - Event Agenda - Economic Policy". Centre for European Policy Studies. 10 July 2019. It projects the rise of mixed-race majorities in the West, but viewing this less as a futuristic end of identity than evidence for Whiteshift, the absorption of a great deal of ethno-racial difference into historic white majorities.
  21. Population and Development Review, Wiley Online Library, March 12, 2020, The US Census Bureau's assessment of when America will become “majority minority” is an evident case in point. For the country as a whole, the currently projected year is 2045; for the under-18 population, 2020. But aside from the absurd degree of precision, the calculation ignores the blurring of ethnic boundaries that inevitably takes place—in particular, “whiteshift.”
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.