US states and districts in which non-Hispanic whites are a minority.

Majority-minority (alternatively, minority-majority) is a term used to describe a U.S. state or other jurisdiction whose racial composition is less than 50% white. 'White' in this context means Non-Hispanic Whites. Racial data are derived from self-identification questions on the census and census bureau estimates. (See Race in the United States Census).

• Four states are majority-minority as of 2010: Hawaii (which is the only state that has never had a white majority), New Mexico, California, and Texas.^[1]
• The percentage of non-Hispanic white residents has fallen below 60% in Maryland, Georgia, Nevada, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The District of Columbia reached a majority black status during the latter stages of the Great Migration.
• All populated United States territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa) are majority-minority areas.
• 13 of the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. are majority-minority. An additional 7 have a non-hispanic white population below 60%. So half of the top 40 metros have a white population below 60%.
• As of 2011, 11% of U.S. counties are now majority-minority. Another 7% are near the tipping point and are predicted to become majority-minority soon.^[2]

History[link]

From colonial times to the early 20th century, much of the Lower South had a black majority. Three Southern states had populations that were majority black. They were Louisiana (until the 1890s^[3]), South Carolina (from c.1708 until the 1920s^[4]) and Mississippi (until the 1930s^[5]). In the same period, close to but just below the 50% level of black populations were Georgia, Alabama and Florida,^[6] while several other Southern states had black populations approaching or exceeding 40%.

These states changed markedly from the 1890s through the 1950s, as two waves of the Great Migration led more than 6.5 million blacks to abandon the economically depressed, legally segregated Deep South in search of better job opportunities and living conditions, first in Northern and Midwestern industrial cities, and later west to California. One-fifth of Florida's black population had left the state by 1940, for instance.^[7] During the last 30 years of the 20th century into the 21st century, scholars have documented a reverse New Great Migration of blacks back to southern states, but typically those of the New South, which have the best jobs and developing economies.^[8]

The District of Columbia, one of the magnets for Great Migration blacks, was long the sole majority-minority federal jurisdiction in the continental U.S. The black proportion has declined since the 1990s due to gentrification and expanding opportunities, with many blacks moving to suburban Maryland and others migrating to jobs in states of the New South in a reverse of the Great Migration.^[8]

Since 1965, foreign immigration has spurred the proliferation of majority-minority areas, most notably in California,^[9] whose legal resident population was 89.5% 'non-Hispanic white' in the 1940s, but was estimated at 43.1% 'non-Hispanic white' in 2005 (56.9% otherwise).

Data collection[link]

The first data for New Mexico was a 5% sample in 1940 which estimated non-Hispanic whites at 50.9%.^[10] Hispanics do not constitute a race but a cultural group: Of respondents who listed Hispanic origin, some listed White race, roughly half gave responses tabulated under "Some other race" (e.g. giving a national origin such as "Mexican" or a designation such as "Mestizo" as race), and much smaller numbers listed Black, Native American, or Asian race.

In recent U.S. censuses, self-identification has been the primary way to identify race. Presumption of race based on countries or regions given in the ancestry question is used only when a respondent has answered the ancestry question but not the race question. The U.S. Census currently defines "white people" very broadly as "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa,^[11] i.e. Caucasoids. This definition has changed through the years.

Although the Census attempts to enumerate both citizens and non-citizens, the illegal immigrant population of the United States has proven hard to quantify; the census uses a 12 million base estimate nationally. However, current estimates based on national surveys, administrative data and other sources of information indicate that the current population may range as high as 20 to 30 million.^[12]

Maps and graphs[link]

SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005 (for the year 2000)

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Other uses[link]

The term majority-minority state almost always refers to ethnic/racial minorities, but it may also refer to other criteria, such as religion, disability, or age. For example, the majority of Utah residents are Mormons, a Christian denomination that is a religious minority throughout the rest of the United States. Utah and Rhode Island, which has a Roman Catholic majority, are the only states in the U.S. where a single denomination constitutes a majority of the population. However, no U.S. state has a majority composed of any non-Christian group, except for Hawaii, where 51.1% of the population follow religions that would be non-mainstream in the rest of the United States. Hawaii is classified as religious majority of Unaffiliated, including agnostics, atheists, humanists, the Irreligious, and Secularists (non-practicing).

International use of the term "majority-minority"[link]

While the concept exists in other nations, the exact term differs from place to place and language to language.

In many large, contiguous countries like Russia or China, there are many autonomous regions where a minority population is the majority. These regions are generally the result of historical population distributions, not because of recent immigration. Here the term "majority-minority" is rarely encountered.

Anglosphere countries[link]

• Canada: The French linguistic minority is the majority in the province of Quebec, and has been since before Canadian Confederation. Racial or "visible minorities" (as they are known in Canada) are expected to become majorities in a few Canadian cities (Toronto and Vancouver) by 2030.^[13] The province of Saskatchewan may also have an Aboriginal majority by 2050, according to some research.^[14]
• The Toronto district of Scarborough has a population made up of 67.4% visible minorities; the Toronto district of North York has a population made up 52% visible minorities. The Toronto suburb of Brampton also has a majority-minority population.

• United Kingdom: Leicester is set to soon become the UK's first ethnic minority-majority city. Indians make up by far the largest ethnic group besides the English ethnic group who constitute 57.5% of the population. The White population stands at 61.3% of the population if all White categories are included (White Irish and White Other).^[15] At 25.0% of the local population in 2007, Leicester has one of the highest percentages of Indians per head of the population of any local authority in the UK.^[16] Outside of London, Slough is the most ethnically diverse local authority in the country ^[17] and is expected to become one of the first minority-majority towns.^[18]

France[link]

• France: minorities are the majority in several banlieues (suburban housing projects).

Brazil[link]

Brazil has officially become a majority "non-White" country as of the 2010 Census.^[19] Those identifying as White declined to 48 percent in 2010 Census from 53 percent in 2000.^[19] However, in Brazil this is not simply a matter of origin and birthrate, but identity changes as well.

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)

External links[link]

• U.S. Census demographic estimates
• 10% of U.S. Counties Now 'Majority-Minority'

Evelin G. Lindner
Evelin Lindner in 2001
Born	(1954-05-13) May 13, 1954 (age 58) Hameln, Germany

Evelin Gerda Lindner (born May 13, 1954, in Hameln, Germany) is a transdisciplinary scholar in social sciences and humanities. She holds two doctorates, one in medicine, and the other in psychology. Her research focuses on human dignity, and she believes that the humiliation of honor and dignity may be among the strongest obstacles on the way to a decent world community. She is the Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS), a global transdisciplinary fellowship of concerned academics and practitioners who wish to promote dignity and transcend humiliation.

Her parents were displaced from Silesia in 1946, and she therefore grew up in West Germany. She has since confirmed that her family's traumatic experiences have formed the background of her work.

In 1994, she obtained her first doctorate, in Medicine (dr. med.), from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and in 2001, her second doctorate, in Psychology (dr. psychol.), from the University of Oslo, Norway. She graduated in Psychology in 1978, and in Medicine in 1984, both from the University of Hamburg and Heidelberg University. She has also studied law and sinology at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, philosophy at the University of Hamburg, and has participated in the Norwegian Research Council's Ethics Programme under philosopher Dagfinn Føllesdal.

Since 1977, Lindner often spends time in Norway, following her marriage to a Norwegian. From 1984 to 1991, she also lived and worked in Cairo, Egypt, where she was a clinical psychologist and psychological counselor at the American University in Cairo for 3 years, and had her own practice for 4 years. She also lived, studied, and did research in Asia (Japan 3 years, China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand), in Africa (West Africa, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi), in the Middle East, USA, and in Europe (mostly in France, Belgium and Switzerland). In 1993, she founded the NGO Better Global Understanding and organized an important peace festival in Hamburg,^[1] and in 1994, she was a candidate in the European Parliament election, 1994.

She speaks English, French, German, Norwegian and Egyptian Arabic fluently and is familiar with a number of other languages, among others, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and modern Hebrew.

Since 1997, she is affiliated with the University of Oslo, where she wrote her doctoral dissertation from 1997 to 2001. Since 2001, she is also affiliated with Columbia University's Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) in New York.^[2] Since 2003, she is, furthermore, affiliated with the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris.

Her first book Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict has been honored as "Outstanding Academic Title" by the journal Choice for 2007 in the USA. She published her second book in 2009 on Emotion and Conflict. Also her third book on Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security that was published in 2010 with a Foreword by Desmond Tutu,^[3] is being highly recommended by Choice. She has also written numerous articles and book chapters, for example, for Bernt Hagtvet's anthology Genocide's Black Book (2008). She has received several awards, among them the "Prisoner’s Testament" Peace Award in 2009.^[4]

Lindner advocates equality in dignity, locally and globally. She has chosen Norway as a main base because she believes that Norway is in a unique historical position. The ideal of equality in dignity (likeverd in Norwegian) is at the core of the human rights message. It is at the same time deeply rooted in Norwegian culture and an important part of Norwegian heritage, while it is new to cultures with more hierarchical traditions that stand for social inequality. Research points at the importance of equality for health and stability, both at the individual and the community level. Equality in dignity is important for a sustainable future locally and globally. Lindner believes that Norway has a responsibility to make the Norwegian cultural heritage more accessible globally. Norway enjoys very high reputation in the world, which means that the message of equality in dignity, when it comes from Norway, has a greater impact.

Selected publications[link]

• Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security: Dignifying Relationships from Love, Sex, and Parenthood to World Affairs, with a Foreword by Desmond Tutu, Praeger Security International, ABC-CLIO, 2010 ISBN 0-313-35485-5
• Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict, with a Foreword by Morton Deutsch, Praeger Security International, Greenwood, 2009 ISBN 978-0-313-37237-7
• Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict, with a Foreword by Morton Deutsch, Praeger Security International, Greenwood, 2006 ISBN 0-275-99109-1
• The Psychology of Humiliation. Somalia, Rwanda / Burundi, and Hitler’s Germany, University of Oslo (dissertation, dr. psychol.), 2001 ISBN 82-569-1817-9
• Lebensqualität im ägyptisch-deutschen Vergleich: Eine Interkulturelle Untersuchung an drei Berufsgruppen (Ärzte, Journalisten, Künstler), Universität Hamburg (dissertation, dr. med.), 1993

References[link]

External links[link]

• Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies
• Life and Work of Evelin G. Lindner
• CV of Evelin G. Lindner
• Introductory lecture "Dignity or Humiliation: The World at a Crossroad," given at the University of Oslo, Norway, in January 2009