demographic Archives - The Race Card Project

I feel like I’ve been sorted.

November 14, 2020November 16, 2020 child, choose, city, demographic, dicipline, Edison, friends, Jaclyn Huelbig, lens, melt, motivation, NJ, religion, sorted, white

Jaclyn Huelbig,
Edison, NJ.

I’m white. When I was a child, I lived in a city (the type that hipsters remain uninterested in!) and I had friends of all races and religions. I had the benefit, for example, of having a conversation with my friend when she chose to don a hijab (her older sister, on the other hand, had chosen not to wear one) and these childhood experiences heavily inform my worldview. However, as I got older and my family moved to the suburbs, it increasingly felt like I was being sorted. Although I moved to a diverse suburb, people tended to hang out with others from their own demographic group. When I went to one of the most diverse colleges in the country it seemed much the same. Was it me? Was I choosing this? Certainly not consciously. I have my degree in sociology, so, in addition to analyzing my own individual behavior and motivations, I also see this through the lens of my discipline and can’t help but feel as though society sorts us. That deeply saddens me. This gulf that divides us is what makes people fearful of others unlike them, if they only knew how alike they really are they may find their fear melting away.

Education will free humanity from differences

July 2, 2018 america, change, demographic, difference, education, free, Hardwood Heights, humanity, IL, Karolina Krajewska, National Geographic, pay, wage

Karolina Krajewska,
Hardwood Heights, IL.

I read your article in National Geographic about a month ago. The white people are mad about the demographic changes and they are responsible for that. Young white woman is on contraceptives and is told to go to work. I have 4 kids and often people ask me where do I work. To raise kids in America is hard, 24/7 work and no pay, no help. We are really poor because I don’t work outside my house. I wish that would change.

“You’re white, so you don’t understand.”

February 22, 2017 apathy, Carrie Piper, demographic, divisions, gentrification, ghetto, hoosier, limbo, midwestern, MO, school, St. Peters, suburbs, understand, white

Carrie Piper,
St Peters, MO.

I grew up in the part of the suburbs that’s sort of a demographic limbo. You’d know what I meant if you saw it: no longer new enough to be “really nice” as the older home builders die off, slowly moving through the “hoosier” phase on its way to “ghetto” and decades away from gentrification making it hip to live there.

By high school the hallways were filled with Black, White, Asian, Latino, and Hispanic of multiple flavors and degrees. You had to count faces in the yearbook to say who was the majority. We were just entering that sweet spot where no one cares: the honors classes had faces from varied backgrounds, the sports teams had started to be less racially stereotypical, and the fights in the hall are about hormones, not colors. But you could still feel divisions. No matter how well we played together to ace the group project or win the big game, like still sought out like once we stepped off school grounds. No hard feelings, it’s just how it often was. Not always, but often. It was an apathy more than avoidance, sticking to those we gravitated to on the grade school playground. Habits are hard to break.

It was in my first study group at a Midwestern, hidden-in-the-cornfields, university that someone first assumed I couldn’t relate to them because of our different skin. I don’t remember ever feeling strange about race before then.

Very little difference between us all.

May 7, 2016May 8, 2016 Betty Lindsey, demographic, difference, human, IL, skin color, South Holland

Betty Lindsey,
South Holland, IL.

All of us humans know it…that there is little that’s different about us… but we let skin color, demographic, etc., get in the way of us really getting to know and love each other.

Color Defined, Now Mixing is Fixing

February 12, 2016February 12, 2016 atlanta, census, Color, define, demographic, Doug Shipman, fixing, GA, interracial marriage, majority, Minority, mixing

Doug Shipman,
Atlanta, GA.

The demographic changes seen in the census are at a turning point– race has to change because the categories are rapidly falling with intermarriage, internationalization and the rise of majority-minority in America.

I’m the majority, I am forgotten

January 6, 2016 care, demographic, fail, forgotten, Kevin Grumbles, majority, OR, Springfield, struggle, succeed, white male

Kevin Grumbles,
Springfield, OR.

I am a 30 year old white male, no one cares if I succeed or fail because there are thousands more just like me. My struggles are forgotten, no one cares about my demographic.

My adopted Black sons are priceless.

October 29, 2015 Accurate, adopted, adoption, Black, black babies, Boston, children in need, demographic, emotionally challenging, MA, sons, thoughtful, Tom DiMartino, white man, young men

Tom DiMartino,
Boston, MA.

I had the immense pleasure of listening to Michele speak today in Boston, and the topic of adoption touched me personally. I am a white man with two adopted black sons who mean more to me than anything in this world. The topic is touchy and Michele’s comments on it were emotionally challenging, thoughtful, and accurate. I wish more people would adopt children in need, as there are still so many more than there are parents. I also wish that I did not know that black boys are statistically less likely to be adopted than any other demographic. If that made an incredibly difficult process easier on some minuscule level for us, so be it. We will forever be proud of the two amazing young men that we are so unbelievably fortunate to be able to call our sons.

I have never enslaved anyone’s ancestors

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 Ancestors, bigot, CO, Colorado Springs, demographic, enslaved, hate crime, homophobic, middle class, Paul, Racist, sexist, slave, white male

Paul,
Colorado Springs, CO.

I am not the enemy. I am a 40-year old white, middle-class male- the prime demographic; according to some. It hurts me when people assume that I’m bigoted, racist, sexist or homophobic. To many racial and gender-based groups; I am looked at as the enemy. Neither I, nor my family has ever committed a hate crime and yet, I am treated as though I’ve done a great wrong.

Invisible white mother feels demographic betrayal

January 13, 2014 Amy Chai, betrayal, ct, demographic, honor, hyphen, Invisible, mixed, New Haven, white mother

Amy Chai
New Haven, CT

I am “white.” I am not European-American, I do not have permission to honor my heritage with a hyphen. I am simply a member of the melanin challenged group that bears collective blame for something that some British, African, and Arab people did a few hundred years ago. It doesn’t matter that I am Scandinavian, with no British, African, or Arab blood at all.

I am also the mother of “mixed race” (AKA HUMAN) children. My child was sitting in a group of Asian girls, and they told her that she could “pass” and did not have to admit to having white blood. They encouraged her to deny me. I am not the only white mother to feel this type of pain–the pain that comes from knowing that your “whiteness” is something that stains your child’s PC potential in this screwed up society in which we live.
I recall feeling happy because Obama was biracial. I didn’t vote for him, but I couldn’t help liking the fact that he came from a family like mine. That was before the 2010 census came out. In the census, although he had the opportunity to affirm his mixed heritage, he decided to mark, “African-American” only on his form. He got to celebrate, hyphenate, and dance on his mother’s grave. After the moment I heard about Obama’s census, I hated him. I hated him on behalf of his mother, who is dead but even if she were alive she would never have the heart to hate him for his betrayal. She would probably even understand why he did it, and maybe even say that it was the right thing to do. White mothers are supposed to be invisible, and be ashamed.

The definition of racism: Making someone feel ashamed because of who they are on the basis of race. Anyone who feels ashamed of being white is a victim of racism. Never apologize for who you are.

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