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In reply to the discussion: Carville was right. Here's why it doesn't matter [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)The Democratic Party truly represents our highly diverse people. We are all those groups up there, including the many "other" groups. We're all races and we're wonderful.
So why do I bother to mention the blatant discrepancy between the truth and the bogus picture presented?
Well, first because it isn't truth and knowingly misrepresents the racial picture. Reality is, whites are still somewhere over 70%, not somewhere in the 60%s. Pew slips a little caveat in below the graph that Hispanics are actually "of any race," but that doesn't correct what's become a common deceit among statisticians. (Why?)
Second, because this has been feeding enormous anxiety on the right regarding the "fast" shrinking white demographic. Our demographic progression is very real; I found it fascinating when I studied it over 40 years ago in college. But many who are afraid of change and don't handle it well only suddenly became aware in this century.
Mispresenting a much larger and more recent decline than has actually happened of course needlessly inflamed reactions to all the great changes we're living through. It also greatly empowers the pernicious fearmongering of white supremacists and other very bad actors, such as the fascistic RWers using racial divisions to break us.
Third, why. Many Hispanics prefer not to identify by race, a cultural thing. But that doesn't explain the pervasive use of bogus, absolute-sounding figures to count both white and blacks as a result. RW agents have infiltrated all the institutions that have to use and quote data, would they forget to infiltrate the people who produce the data?