The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, mind abuse, menticide, thought control, or thought reform) refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated".^[1] The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, Jacques Ellul maintains that the "principal aims of these psychological methods is to destroy a man's habitual patterns, space, hours, milieu, and so on."^[2]

Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs).

Korean War and the origin of brainwashing[link]

The Oxford English Dictionary records its earliest known English-language usage of brainwashing in an article by Edward Hunter in New Leader published on 7 October 1950. During the Korean War, Hunter, who worked at the time both as a journalist and as a U.S. intelligence agent, wrote a series of books and articles on the theme of Chinese brainwashing.^[3]

The Chinese term 洗腦 (xǐ năo, literally "wash brain")^[4] was originally used to describe methodologies of coercive persuasion used under the Maoist regime in China, which aimed to transform individuals with a reactionary imperialist mindset into "right-thinking" members of the new Chinese social system.^[5] To that end the regime developed techniques that would break down the psychic integrity of the individual with regard to information processing, information retained in the mind and individual values. Chosen techniques included dehumanizing of individuals by keeping them in filth, sleep deprivation, partial sensory deprivation, psychological harassment, inculcation of guilt and group social pressure.^{[citation needed]} The term punned on the Taoist custom of "cleansing/washing the heart/mind"^[6] (洗心, xǐ xīn) prior to conducting certain ceremonies or entering certain holy places.^{[citation needed]}

Hunter and those who picked up the Chinese term used it to explain why, unlike in earlier wars, a relatively high percentage of American GIs defected to the enemy side after becoming prisoners-of-war. It was believed that the Chinese in North Korea used such techniques to disrupt the ability of captured troops to effectively organize and resist their imprisonment.^[7] British radio operator Robert W. Ford^[8][9] and British army Colonel James Carne also claimed that the Chinese subjected them to brainwashing techniques during their war-era imprisonment. The most prominent case in the U.S. was that of Frank Schwable, who confessed to having participated in germ warfare while in captivity.^[10]

After the war, two studies of the repatriation of American prisoners of war by Robert Jay Lifton^[11] and by Edgar Schein^[12] concluded that brainwashing (called "thought reform" by Lifton and "coercive persuasion" by Schein) had a transient effect. Both researchers found that the Chinese mainly used coercive persuasion to disrupt the ability of the prisoners to organize and maintain morale and hence to escape. By placing the prisoners under conditions of physical and social deprivation and disruption, and then by offering them more comfortable situations such as better sleeping quarters, better food, warmer clothes or blankets, the Chinese did succeed in getting some of the prisoners to make anti-American statements. Nevertheless, the majority of prisoners did not actually adopt Communist beliefs, instead behaving as though they did in order to avoid the plausible threat of extreme physical abuse. Both researchers also concluded that such coercive persuasion succeeded only on a minority of POWs, and that the end-result of such coercion remained very unstable, as most of the individuals reverted to their previous condition soon after they left the coercive environment. In 1961 they both published books expanding on these findings. Schein published Coercive Persuasion^[13] and Lifton published Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.^[14] More recent writers including Mikhail Heller have suggested that Lifton's model of brainwashing may throw light on the use of mass propaganda in other communist states such as the former Soviet Union.^[15]

In a summary published in 1963, Edgar Schein gave a background history of the precursor origins of the brainwashing phenomenon:

Thought reform contains elements which are evident in Chinese culture (emphasis on interpersonal sensitivity, learning by rote and self-cultivation); in methods of extracting confessions well known in the Papal Inquisition (13th century) and elaborated through the centuries, especially by the Russian secret police; in methods of organizing corrective prisons, mental hospitals and other institutions for producing value change; in methods used by religious sects, fraternal orders, political elites or primitive societies for converting or initiating new members. Thought reform techniques are consistent with psychological principles but were not explicitly derived from such principles.^[16]

Mind-control theories from the Korean War era came under criticism in subsequent years. According to forensic psychologist Dick Anthony, the CIA invented the concept of "brainwashing" as a propaganda strategy to undercut communist claims that American POWs in Korean communist camps had voluntarily expressed sympathy for communism. Anthony stated that definitive research demonstrated that fear and duress, not brainwashing, caused western POWs to collaborate. He argued that the books of Edward Hunter (whom he identified as a secret CIA "psychological warfare specialist" passing as a journalist) pushed the CIA brainwashing theory onto the general public. He further asserted that for twenty years, starting in the early 1950s, the CIA and the Defense Department conducted secret research (notably including Project MKULTRA) in an attempt to develop practical brainwashing techniques, and that their attempt failed.^[17]

The U.S. military and government laid charges of "brainwashing" in an effort to undermine detailed confessions made by U.S. military personnel to war crimes, including biological warfare, against the Koreans.^[18] Frank Schwable, Chief of Staff of the First Marine Air Wing was shot down in North Korea. After Chinese radio broadcasts claimed to quote him admitting to participating in germ warfare, United Nations commander Gen. Mark W. Clark denounced said: "Whether these statements ever passed the lips of these unfortunate men is doubtful. If they did, however, too familiar are the mind-annihilating methods of these Communists in extorting whatever words they want .... The men themselves are not to blame, and they have my deepest sympathy for having been used in this abominable way."^[19] In August^{[date missing]}, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson set up a task force to study the response of U.S. prisoners of war to brainwashing.^[20]

Army report debunks brainwashing of American prisoners of war[link]

In 1956 the U.S Department of the Army published a report entitled Communist Interrogation, Indoctrination, and Exploitation of Prisoners of War which called brainwashing a "popular misconception."^[21] The report states "exhaustive research of several government agencies failed to reveal even one conclusively documented case of 'brainwashing' of an American prisoner of war in Korea."^[22]

While US POW's captured by North Korea were brutalized with starvation, beatings, forced death marches, exposure to extremes of temperature, binding in stress positions, and withholding of medical care, the abuse had no relation to indoctrination or collecting intelligence information "in which they [North Korea] were not particularly interested."^[23] In contrast American POW's in the custody of the Chinese Communists did face a concerted interrogation and indoctrination program--but the Chinese did not employ deliberate physical abuse. "Extensive research has disclosed that systematic, physical torture was not employed in connection with interrogation or indoctrination," the report states.^[24]

The Chinese elicited information using tricks such as harmless-seeming written questionnaires, followed by interviews.^[25] The "most insidious" and effective Chinese technique according to the US Army Report was a convivial display of false friendship:

"[w]hen an American soldier was captured by the Chinese, he was given a vigorous handshake and a pat on the back. The enemy 'introduced' himself as a friend of the 'workers' of America . . . in many instances the Chinese did not search the American captives, but frequently offered them American cigarettes. This display of friendship caught most Americans totally off-guard and they never recovered from the initial impression made by the Chinese. . . . [A]fter the initial contact with the enemy, some Americans seemed to believe that the enemy was sincere and harmless. They relaxed and permitted themselves to be lulled into a well-disguised trap [of cooperating with] the cunning enemy." ^[26]

It was this surprising, disarmingly friendly treatment, that "was successful to some degree," the report concludes, in undermining hatred of the communists among American soldiers, in persuading some to sign anti-American confessions, and even leading a few to reject repatriation and remain in Communist China.^[27]

Cults and the shift of focus[link]

After the Korean War, applications of mind control theories in the United States shifted in focus from politics to religion. From the 1960s an increasing number of American youths started to come into contact with new religious movements (NRM), and some who converted suddenly adopted beliefs and behaviors that differed greatly from those of their families and friends; in some cases they neglected or even broke contact with their loved ones. In the 1970s the anti-cult movement applied mind control theories to explain these sudden and seemingly dramatic religious conversions.^[28][29][30] The media was quick to follow suit,^[31] and social scientists sympathetic to the anti-cult movement, who were usually psychologists, developed more sophisticated models of brainwashing.^[29] While some psychologists were receptive to these theories, sociologists were for the most part skeptical of their ability to explain conversion to NRMs.^[32]

Theories of mind control and religious conversion[link]

Over the years various theories of conversion and member retention have been proposed^{[by whom?]} that link mind control to NRMs, and particularly those religious movements referred to as "cults" by their critics. These theories resemble the original political brainwashing theories with some minor changes. Philip Zimbardo discusses mind control as "the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes",^[33] and he suggests that any human being is susceptible to such manipulation.^[34] In a 1999 book, Robert Lifton also applied his original ideas about thought reform to Aum Shinrikyo, concluding that in this context thought reform was possible without violence or physical coercion. Margaret Singer, who also spent time studying the political brainwashing of Korean prisoners of war, agreed with this conclusion: in her book Cults in Our Midst she describes six conditions which would create an atmosphere in which thought reform is possible.^[35]

Approaching the subject from the perspective of neuroscience and social psychology, Kathleen Taylor suggests that manipulation of the prefrontal cortex activates "brainwashing", rendering a person more susceptible to black-and-white thinking.^[36] Meanwhile, in Influence, Science and Practice, social psychologist Robert Cialdini argues that mind control is possible through the covert exploitation of the unconscious rules that underlie and facilitate healthy human social interactions. He states that common social rules can be used to prey upon the unwary. Using categories, he offers specific examples of both mild and extreme mind control (both one on one and in groups), notes the conditions under which each social rule is most easily exploited for false ends, and offers suggestions on how to resist such methods.^[37]

Deprogramming and the anti-cult movement[link]

Both academic and non-academic critics of "destructive cults" have adopted and adapted the theories of Singer, Lifton and other researchers from the inception of the anti-cult movement^[when?] onwards. Such critics often argue that certain religious groups use mind control techniques to unethically recruit and maintain members. Many of these critics advocated or engaged in deprogramming as a method to liberate group members from apparent "brainwashing". However the practice of coercive deprogramming fell out of favor in the West and was largely superseded by exit counseling. Exit counselor Steven Hassan promotes what he calls the "BITE" model in his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves (2000).^[38] The BITE model describes various controls over human behavior, information, thought and emotion.^[38] Hassan claims that cults recruit and retain members by using, among other things, systematic deception, behavior modification, the withholding of information, and emotionally intense persuasion techniques (such as the induction of phobias). He refers to all of these techniques collectively as "mind control".

Critics of mind control theories caution against the broader implications of these conversion models. In the 1998 Enquete Commission report on "So-called Sects and Psychogroups" in Germany, a review was made of the BITE model. The report concluded that "control of these areas of action is an inevitable component of social interactions in a group or community. The social control that is always associated with intense commitment to a group must therefore be clearly distinguished from the exertion of intentional, methodical influence for the express purpose of manipulation."^[39] Indeed virtually all of these models share the notion that converts are in fact innocent "victims" of mind-control techniques.^[32] Hassan suggests that even the cult members manipulating the new converts may themselves be sincerely misled people.^[40] By considering NRM members innocent "victims" of psychological coercion these theories open the door for psychological treatments.

Sociologists including Eileen Barker have criticized theories of conversion precisely because they function to justify costly interventions such as deprogramming or exit counseling.^[41] For similar reasons, Barker and other scholars have criticized mental health professionals like Margaret Singer for accepting lucrative expert witness jobs in court cases involving NRMs.^[41] Singer was perhaps the most publicly notable scholarly proponent of "cult" brainwashing theories, and she became the focal point of the relative demise of those same theories within her discipline.^[29]

Scholarly debate[link]

James Richardson observes that if the NRMs had access to powerful brainwashing techniques, one would expect that NRMs would have high growth rates, yet in fact most have not had notable success in recruitment. Most adherents participate for only a short time, and the success in retaining members is limited.^[42] For this and other reasons, sociologists of religion including David Bromley and Anson Shupe consider the idea that "cults" are brainwashing American youth to be "implausible."^[43] In addition to Bromley, Thomas Robbins, Dick Anthony, Eileen Barker, Newton Maloney, Massimo Introvigne, John Hall, Lorne Dawson, Anson Shupe, Gordon Melton, Marc Galanter, Saul Levine (amongst other scholars researching NRMs) have argued and established to the satisfaction of courts, of relevant professional associations and of scientific communities that there exists no scientific theory, generally accepted and based upon methodologically sound research, that supports the brainwashing theories as advanced by the anti-cult movement.^[44]

Other scholars disagree with this consensus amongst sociologists of religion. Benjamin Zablocki asserts that it's obvious that brainwashing occurs, at least to any objective observer; the "real sociological issue", he states, is whether "brainwashing occurs frequently enough to be considered an important social problem".^[45] Zablocki disagrees with scholars like Richardson, stating that Richardson's observation is flawed.^[46] According to Zablocki, Richardson misunderstands brainwashing, conceiving of it as a recruiting process, instead of a retaining process.^[47] So although Richardson's data are correct, Zablocki states, properly understood, brainwashing does not imply that NRMs will have a notable success in recruitment; so the criticism is inapt.^[48] Additionally, Zablocki attempts to debunk the other criticisms Richardson, et al, apply to brainwashing: if Zablocki is correct, there's a plethora of evidence in favor of the claim that some NRMs brainwash some of their members.^[49] Perhaps most notably, Zablocki says, the sheer number of former cult leaders and ex-members who attest to brainwashing in interviews (performed in accordance with guidelines of the National Institute of Mental Health and National Science Foundation) is too large to be a result of anything other than a genuine phenomenon.^[50] Zablocki also reveals that of two most prestigious journals dedicated to the sociology of religion, the number of articles "supporting the brainwashing perspective" have been zero, while over one hundred such articles have been published in other journals "marginal to the field".^[51] From this fact, Zablocki concludes that the concept 'brainwashing' has been "blacklisted" unfairly from the field of sociology of religion.^[51] Moreover, sociologists of religion have received "lavish funding" from NRMs, which suggests that the so-called scientific community of scholars engages in some "corrupt" practices".^[45] Stephen A. Kent has also published several articles about brainwashing.^[52][53] These scholars tend to see no consensus, while what Melton sees as a majority of scholars^[54] may regard it as a rejection of brainwashing and of mind control as legitimate theories.^{[citation needed]}

Legal issues, the APA and DIMPAC[link]

Since their inception, mind control theories have also been used in various legal proceedings against "cult" groups. In 1980, ex-Scientologist Lawrence Wollersheim successfully sued the Church of Scientology in a California court which decided in 1986 that church practices had been conducted in a psychologically coercive environment and so were not protected by religious freedom guarantees.^{[citation needed]} Others who have tried claiming a "brainwashing defense" for crimes committed while purportedly under mind control, including Patty Hearst, Steven Fishman and Lee Boyd Malvo, have not been successful.

In 1983, the American Psychological Association (APA) asked Margaret Singer to chair a taskforce called the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC) to investigate whether brainwashing or "coercive persuasion" did indeed play a role in recruitment by such movements. Before the taskforce had submitted its final report, the APA submitted on February 10, 1987 an amicus curiæ brief in an ongoing court case related to brainwashing. Although the amicus curiæ brief written by the APA denies the credibility of the brainwashing theory, the APA submitted the brief under "intense pressure by a consortium of pro-religion scholars (a.k.a. NRM scholars)".^[55] The brief repudiated Singer's theories on "coercive persuasion" and suggested that brainwashing theories were without empirical proof.^[56] Afterward the APA filed a motion to withdraw its signature from the brief, since Singer's final report had not been completed.^[57] However, on May 11, 1987, the APA's Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected the DIMPAC report because the report "lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur", and concluded that "after much consideration, BSERP does not believe that we have sufficient information available to guide us in taking a position on this issue."^[58] This leaves the APA's position on brainwashing as equivalent to: more research is needed until a definitive scientific verdict can be given.^[59]

Two critical letters from external reviewers Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Jeffery D. Fisher accompanied the rejection memo. The letters criticized "brainwashing" as an unrecognized theoretical concept and Singer's reasoning as so flawed that it was "almost ridiculous."^[60] After her findings were rejected, Singer sued the APA in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy" and lost.^[61] Benjamin Zablocki and Alberto Amitrani interpreted the APA's response as meaning that there was no unanimous decision on the issue either way, suggesting also that Singer retained the respect of the psychological community after the incident.^[62] Yet her career as an expert witness ended at this time. She was meant to appear with Richard Ofshe in the 1990 U.S. v. Fishman Case, in which Steven Fishman claimed to have been under mind control by the Church of Scientology in order to defend himself against charges of embezzlement, but the courts disallowed her testimony. In the eyes of the court, "neither the APA nor the ASA has endorsed the views of Dr. Singer and Dr. Ofshe on thought reform".^[63]

After that time U.S. courts consistently rejected testimonies about mind control and manipulation, stating that such theories were not part of accepted mainline science according to the Frye Standard (Anthony & Robbins 1992: 5-29) of 1923.^{[citation needed]}

Other areas[link]

Mind control is a general term for a number of controversial theories proposing that an individual's thinking, behavior, emotions or decisions can, to a greater or lesser extent, be manipulated at will by outside sources. According to sociologist James T. Richardson, some of the concepts of brainwashing have spread to other fields and are applied "with some success" in contexts unrelated to the earlier cult controversies, such as custody battles and child sexual abuse cases, "where one parent is accused of brainwashing the child to reject the other parent, and in child sex abuse cases where one parent is accused of brainwashing the child to make sex abuse accusations against the other parent".^[64][65]

Stephen A. Kent analyzes and summarizes the use of the brainwashing meme by non-sociologists in the period 2000-2007, finding the term useful not only in the context of "New Religions/Cults", but equally under the headings of "Teen Behavior Modification Programs; Terrorist Groups; Dysfunctional Corporate Culture; Interpersonal Violence; and Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong".^[66]

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Begich, N. (2006). Controlling the Human Mind. Anchorage, AK. ISBN 1-890693-54-5. 
• Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. Trans. Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1965. New York: Random House/ Vintage, 1973.
• Langone, M.D. (1993). Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-31321-2. 
• Lifton, R.J. (1989). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4253-2. 
• Singer M et al. (1986-11-01). "Report of the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC report)". American Psychological Association. http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist23.html. Retrieved 2008-10-10. 
• Streatfeild, D. (2008). Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control. New York: Picador. ISBN 0-312-42792-1. 
• Zablocki, B. (1997). "The Blacklisting of a Concept. The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion". Nova Religio 1 (1): 96–121. DOI:10.1525/nr.1997.1.1.96. 
• Zablocki, B (1998). "Exit Cost Analysis: A New Approach to the Scientific Study of Brainwashing" (PDF). Nova Religio 2 (1): 216–249. DOI:10.1525/nr.1998.1.2.216. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/nr.1998.1.2.216. Retrieved 2008-10-10. 
• Zimbardo, P. (2002-11-01). "Mind Control: Psychological Reality or Mindless Rhetoric?". Monitor on Psychology. http://www.csj.org/infoserv_articles/zimbardo_philip_mindcontrol.htm. 
• Swirski, Peter (2011). "We Better Kill the Instinct to Kill Before It Kills Us or Violence, Mind Control, and Walker Percy's The Thanatos Syndrome". American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History. New York: Routledge.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mind control

Look up mind control in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who reported “White” or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish."^[4] Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "Not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component,^[4] the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and white Cuban Americans. The term "Caucasian" is often used interchangeably with "White", despite the fact they are not synonymous.^[5][6]

German Americans (16.5%), Irish Americans (11.9%), English Americans (9.0%), Italian Americans (5.8%), French Americans (4%), Polish Americans (3%), Scottish Americans (1.9%), Dutch Americans (1.6%), Norwegian Americans (1.5%), and Swedish Americans (1.4%) constitute the ten largest White American ancestries.^[7] Whites constitute the majority, with a total of 223,553,265 or 72.4% of the population in the 2010 United States Census.

Historical and present definitions[link]

Current U.S. Census definition[link]

The term "White American" or "European American" can encompass many different ethnic groups. Although the United States Census purports to reflect a social definition of race, the social dimensions of race are more complex than Census criteria. The 2000 U.S. census states that racial categories "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. They do not conform to any biological, anthropological or genetic criteria."^[8]

The Census question on race lists the categories White, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, plus "Some other race", with the respondent having the ability to mark more than one category. The Census Bureau defines White people as follows:

The term "White" refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who reported "White" or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.^[4]

In U.S. census documents, the designation white overlaps, as do all other official racial categories, with the term Hispanic or Latino, which was introduced in the 1980 census as a category of ethnicity, separate and independent of race.^[9][10] Hispanic and Latino Americans make up a racially diverse group, and as a whole are the largest minority in the country.^[11][12]

In cases where individuals do not self-identify, the U.S. census parameters for race give each national origin a racial value.

Additionally, people who reported Muslim (or a sect of Islam such as Shi'ite or Sunni), Jewish, Zoroastrian, or Caucasian as their "race" in the "Some other race" section, without noting a country of origin, are automatically tallied as white.^[13] The US Census considers the write-in response of "Caucasian" or "Aryan" to be a synonym for white in their ancestry code listing.^[14]

Social definition[link]

President Abraham Lincoln was descended from Samuel Lincoln, and was of English and Welsh ancestry.

Actress Raquel Welch of Spanish (via Bolivia) and English ancestry back to the Mayflower.^[15]

According to race scholars such as Karen Brodkin, in the United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered white and Jews are also considered white.^[16] However, while the census asserts that "race" and "ethnicity" are separate, some Hispanics of primarily European descent may not consider themselves white and may not be considered white by others, possibly because of the long-held stereotype of Hispanics being given a non-white racial value.^[17][18][19] Likewise, while people of Middle Eastern and North African descent are included in the white category in the census, they may not consider themselves white and may not be considered white, as well.^[20]

The cultural boundaries separating white Americans from other racial or ethnic categories have changed significantly over the course of American history. Even among Europeans, those not considered white at some time in American history include Ashkenazi Jews, Southern Europeans (Spaniards, Greeks, Italians etc.), Irish Catholics, Eastern Europeans and Germans.^[21][22] Early on in the United States, white generally referred to those of British Isles or northwestern European descent.^[23]

David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the white race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.^[24] The process of officially being defined as white by law often came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship.^[25] In the early 20th century, it became common for white supremacists to promote the features of the blond, blue-eyed Nordic race as the "master race".

Critical race theory definition[link]

Critical race theory takes, as one of its founding influences, the nonfiction essays of James Baldwin, who argued that Whiteness was a fictional category, a construct without reference to any culture at all except for the purposes of domination and genocide. Scholars such as David Roediger, Paul Gilroy, and others have based some of their work on this notion.

As whites are the dominant racial and cultural group, according to sociologist Steven Seidman, writing from a critical theory perspective, "White culture constitutes the general cultural mainstream, causing non-White culture to be seen as deviant, in either a positive or negative manner. Moreover, Whites tend to be disproportionately represented in powerful positions, controlling almost all political, economic, and cultural institutions."

Yet, according to Seidman, Whites are most commonly unaware of their "privilege" and the manner in which their culture has always been dominant in the US, as they do not identify as members of a specific racial group but rather incorrectly perceive their views and culture as "raceless", when in fact it is ethno-national (ethnic/cultural) specific, with a racial base component.^[26]

Demographic information[link]

Whites (non-Hispanic and Hispanic) made up 79.8% or 75% of the American population in 2008.^{[11][12][31][32]} This latter number is sometimes recorded as 77.1% when it includes about 2% of the population who are identified as white in combination with one or more other races. The largest ethnic groups (by ancestry) among white Americans were Germans, followed by the Irish and the English.^[33] It is likely that many Americans who are descended of English, Irish, or Scottish peoples, or perhaps even more commonly a combination of these and of these and other ethnic groups, simply identify as "American" in the census, and that Americans of English descent are far greater in number than those of German descent.^{[citation needed]} For a better idea on why Americans of English ancestry are likely far undercounted, see English American. In the 1980 census 49,598,035 Americans cited that they were of English ancestry, making them 26% of the country and the largest group at the time, and in fact larger than the population of England itself.^[34] Slightly more than half of these people would cite that they were of "American" ancestry on subsequent censuses and virtually everywhere that "American" ancestry predominates on the 2000 census corresponds to places where "English" predominated on the 1980 census.^[35][36]

White Americans (again, non-Hispanic and Hispanic Whites) are projected to remain the majority, though with their percentage decreasing to 72% of the total population by 2050. However, the projections are that the non-Hispanic White population will become less than 50% of the population by 2041,^{[citation needed]} in part because Non-Hispanic Whites have the lowest fertility rate of any major racial group in the United States and largely due to mass-immigration.^{[citation needed]}

While over ten million white people can trace part of their ancestry back to the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 (this common statistic overlooks the Jamestown, Virginia foundations of America and roots of even earlier colonist-descended Americans, such as Spanish Americans in St. Augustine, Florida), over 35 million whites have at least one ancestor who passed through the Ellis Island immigration station, which processed arriving immigrants from 1892 until 1954. See also: European Americans.

Geographic distribution[link]

According to the Census definition, white Americans are the majority racial group in almost all of the United States. They are not the majority in Hawaii, many American Indian reservations, parts of the South known as the Black Belt, and in many urban areas throughout the country.

Overall the highest concentration of those referred to as "White alone" by the Census Bureau was found in the Midwest, New England, the Rocky Mountain states, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The lowest concentration of whites was found in southern and mid-Atlantic states.^[4][37][38]

Although all large geographical areas are dominated by white Americans, much larger differences can be seen between specific parts of large cities.

States with the highest percentages of White Americans, as of 2007:^[39]

• Vermont 96.2%
• Maine 95.5%
• New Hampshire 95.0%
• West Virginia 94.3%
• Iowa 92.9%
• Idaho 92.1%
• Wyoming 91.6%
• Minnesota 90.94%
• North Dakota 90.9%

States with the highest percentages of non-Hispanic whites, as of 2007:^[40]

• Vermont 95.4%
• Maine 94.8%
• West Virginia 93.7%
• New Hampshire 93.4%
• Iowa 90.9%
• North Dakota 90.2%
• Montana 88.3%
• Kentucky 88.1%
• Wyoming 87.7%
• South Dakota 86.5%

Income and educational attainment[link]

White Americans have the second highest median household income and personal income levels in the nation, by cultural background. The median income per household member was also the highest, since White Americans had the smallest households of any racial demographic in the nation. In 2006, the median individual income of a White American age 25 or older was $33,030, with those who were full-time employed, and of age 25 to 64, earning $34,432. Since 42% of all households had two income earners, the median household income was considerably higher than the median personal income, which was $48,554 in 2005. Jewish Americans rank first in household income, personal income, and educational attainment among white Americans.^[41] In 2005, white households had a median household income of $48,977, which is 10.3% above the national median of $44,389. Among Cuban Americans, with 86% classifying as White, those persons born in the US have a higher median income and educational attainment level than most other whites.^[42]

The poverty rates for White Americans are the second-lowest of any racial group, with 10.8% of white individuals living below the poverty line, 3% lower than the national average.^[43] However, due to Whites' majority status, 48% of Americans living in poverty are white.^[44]

Whites' educational attainment is the second-highest in the country, after Asian Americans'. Overall, nearly one-third of White Americans had a Bachelor's degree, with the educational attainment for whites being higher for those born outside the United States: 37.6% of foreign born, and 29.7% of native born Whites had a college degree. Both figures are above the national average of 27.2%.^[45]

Gender income inequality was the greatest among whites, with White men outearning white women by 48%. Census Bureau data for 2005 reveals that the median income of white females was lower than that of males of all races. In 2005, the median income for White females was only slightly higher than that of African American females, indicating that income inequities seem to run along gender lines more so than along racial lines.^[46]

Population by state or territory[link]

White Population by state or territory (2000–2010)^[47]

State/Territory	Pop 2000	% pop 2000	Pop 2010	% pop 2010	% growth 2000-2010
Alabama	3,162,808	71.1%	3,274,119	68.5%	+3.5%
Alaska	434,534	69.3%	473,724	66.7%	+9.0%
Arizona	3,873,611	75.5%	4,666,172	73.0%	+20.5%
Arkansas	2,138,598	80.0%	2,245,257	77.0%	+5.0%
California	20,170,059	59.5%	21,458,278	56.7%	+6.4%
Colorado	3,560,005	82.8%	4,088,736	81.3%	+14.8%
Connecticut	2,780,355	81.6%	2,773,500	77.6%	-0.2%
Delaware	584,773	74.6%	618,676	68.9%	+5.8%
District of Columbia	176,101	30.8%	231,663	38.5%	+31.6%
Florida	12,465,029	78.0%	14,100,982	75.0%	+13.1%
Georgia	5,327,281	65.1%	5,783,529	59.7%	+8.5%
Hawaii	294,102	24.3%	335,994	24.7%	+14.2%
Idaho	1,177,304	91.0%	1,396,716	89.1%	+18.6%
Illinois	9,125,471	73.5%	9,173,902	71.5%	+0.5%
Indiana	5,320,022	87.5%	5,465,845	84.3%	+2.7%
Iowa	2,748,640	93.9%	2,781,322	91.3%	+1.2%
Kansas	2,313,944	86.1%	2,390,913	83.8%	+3.3%
Kentucky	3,640,889	90.1%	3,809,964	87.8%	+4.6%
Louisiana	2,856,161	63.9%	2,837,891	62.6%	-0.6%
Maine	1,236,014	96.9%	1,293,160	95.2%	+4.6%
Maryland	3,391,308	64.0%	3,360,207	58.2%	-0.9%
Massachusetts	5,367,286	84.5%	5,264,294	80.4%	-1.9%
Michigan	7,966,053	80.2%	7,798,192	78.9%	-2.1%
Minnesota	4,400,282	89.4%	4,524,248	85.3%	+2.8%
Mississippi	1,746,099	61.4%	1,753,672	59.1%	+0.4%
Missouri	4,748,083	84.9%	4,958,831	82.8%	+4.4%
Montana	817,229	90.6%	884,537	89.4%	+8.2%
Nebraska	1,533,261	89.6%	1,572,480	86.1%	+2.6%
Nevada	1,501,886	75.2%	1,787,764	66.2%	+19.0%
New Hampshire	1,186,851	96.0%	1,236,165	92.3%	+4.1%
New Jersey	6,104,705	72.6%	6,031,239	68.6%	-1.2%
New Mexico	1,214,253	66.8%	1,408,479	68.4%	+16.0%
New York	12,893,689	67.9%	12,731,413	65.7%	-1.2%
North Carolina	5,804,656	72.1%	6,531,806	68.5%	+12.5%
North Dakota	593,181	92.4%	605,332	90.0%	+2.0%
Ohio	9,645,453	85.0%	9,540,689	82.7%	-1.1%
Oklahoma	2,628,434	76.2%	2,708,475	72.2%	+3.0%
Oregon	2,961,623	86.6%	3,202,778	83.6%	+8.1%
Pennsylvania	10,484,203	85.4%	10,403,248	81.9%	-0.7%
Rhode Island	891,191	85.0%	856,790	81.4%	-3.8%
South Carolina	2,695,560	67.2%	3,061,991	66.2%	+13.6%
South Dakota	669,404	88.7%	699,381	85.9%	+4.5%
Tennessee	4,563,310	80.2%	4,924,577	77.6%	+7.9%
Texas	14,799,505	71.0%	17,702,475	70.4%	+19.6%
Utah	1,992,975	89.2%	2,379,705	86.1%	+19.4%
Vermont	589,208	96.8%	596,331	95.3%	+1.2%
Virginia	5,120,110	72.3%	5,488,702	68.6%	+7.2%
Washington	4,821,823	81.8%	5,198,070	77.3%	+7.8%
West Virginia	1,718,777	95.0%	1,739,961	93.9%	+1.2%
Wisconsin	4,769,857	88.9%	4,902,182	86.2%	+2.8%
Wyoming	454,670	92.1%	510,846	90.7%	+12.3%
American Samoa	682	1.2%
Guam	10,666	6.9%
Northern Mariana Islands	1,274	1.8%
Puerto Rico	3,064,862	80.5%	2,824,148	75.8%	-7.8%
U.S. Virgin Islands	12,275	11.3%	13,939	13.1%	+13.6%
United States of America	211,460,626	75.1%	223,553,265	72.4%	+5.7%

Culture[link]

Three members of the Kennedy political dynasty, John, Robert, and Edward. All eight of their great-grandparents immigrated from Ireland.

White American culture derived its earliest influences from English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Irish settlers and is quantitatively the largest proportion of American culture. From their earliest presence in North America, White Americans have contributed literature, art, agricultural skills, foods, clothing styles, music, and language to American culture.

Four regional cultures[link]

In his 1989 book "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" (ISBN 0-19-506905-6), David Hackett Fischer explores the details of the folkways of four different groups of settlers from the British Isles that came to the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries from distinct regions of Britain and Ireland. His thesis is that the culture of each group persisted (albeit in modified form), providing the basis for the modern United States.^{[page needed]}

According to Fischer, the foundation of America's four regional cultures was formed from four mass migrations from four different regions of the British Isles by four distinct ethno-cultural groups. New England's formative period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, mostly from East Anglia in England, settled there, thus forming the basis for the New England regional culture. The next mass migration was of southern English Cavaliers and their Irish and Scottish servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. This spawned the creation of the American Southern culture.^{[page needed]}

Then, between 1675 and 1725, thousands of Irish, Cornish, English and Welsh Quakers plus many Germans sympathetic to Quaker ideas, led by William Penn, settled the Delaware Valley. This resulted in the formation of the General American culture, although, according to Fischer, this is really a "regional culture," even if it does today encompass most of the U.S. from the mid-Atlantic states to the Pacific Coast. Finally, a huge number of settlers from the borderlands between England and Scotland, and from northern Ireland, migrated to Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. This resulted in the formation of the Upland South regional culture, which has since expanded to the west to West Texas and parts of the U.S. Southwest.^{[page needed]}

In his book, Fischer brings up several points. He states that the U.S. is not a country with one "general" culture and several "regional" culture, as is commonly thought. Rather, there are only four regional cultures as described above, and understanding this helps one to more clearly understand American history as well as contemporary American life. Fischer also asserts that it is not only important to understand where different groups came from, but when. All population groups have, at different times, their own unique set of beliefs, fears, hopes and prejudices. When different groups came to America and brought certain beliefs and values with them, these ideas became, according to Fischer, more or less frozen in time, even if they eventually changed in their original place of origin.^{[page needed]}

Admixture[link]

Many whites have varying amounts of Native American and African ancestry. In a recent study, Gonçalves et al. 2007 reported Sub-Saharan and Amerindian mtDna lineages at a frequency of 3.1% (respectively 0.90% and 2.2%) in White Americans of European descent.^[48] In another study, about 30% of all White Americans, approximately 66 million people, have a median of 2.3% of Black African admixture.^[49]

See also[link]

United States portal

Backgrounds:

• African American
• Angry white male
• Asian American
• Arab American
• Native American
• Immigration to the United States
• Race in the United States
• Race and ethnicity in the United States

Diaspora:

• White African
• White Latin American
• White Mexican
• White people

References[link]

External links[link]

• White Population 2000 from the US Census