Explosive Growth in Communities of Color

Rinku Sen

Explosive Growth in Communities of Color

This week, the press has been focused on the new immigration numbers coming out of the Census Bureau's mid-decade update. But they've ignored the other racial news beyond immigration embedded in that data. The Applied Research Center analyzed the data along racial lines for all 50 states, and found dramatic growth in all communities of color nationwide. Whites are the only group with falling numbers nationally, and Black numbers mostly held steady, including in New York State. Here are some highlights nationally:

Latinos grew by almost 20 percent.
American Indians grew by 6 percent.
Asian/Pacific Islanders grew by 15 percent.
Multiracial Americans by almost 16 percent.
Blacks grew by 5.6 percent.
Whites decreased by 2 percent.

At the same site, you can check out the fact sheet on New York State. Here, Latinos have grown by 7 percent, APIs by a dramatic 13 percent and the multiracial category by 13.5 percent. Blacks had a neglible dip (.1 percent), while whites dipped a little more (1.3 percent). The multiracial numbers seem to indicate that there's a lot of desegregation going on in dating and sex. In the coming weeks, we will be posting analyses for additional states as well.

These increases mean that public officials who have been thinking that they're serving primarily white communities will have to rethink their constituencies. They'll need to get comfortable evaluating public policies and institutional practices against a racial justice standard, and they'll need to be thinking ahead about preventing hate crimes and individual discrimination. That probably means making more rules rather than less so that peoples' individual biases can't rule their institutional behavior. Check out our new video, Race and Public Policy: A Dialogue , which lays out criteria for new rules.

Comments

What does it mean to evaluate public policy "along a racial justice standard"? Isn't the job of policymakers to make education and economic policy based on how it benefits their constituents, not on how it furthers racial justice?

Your comment suggests that there's a difference between racial justice standards and "consituencies," which I think is a false polarization. Our point is that the days when politicians could make "colorblind" policy that actually just met the needs of their mostly white constituencies have passed. A racial justice standard for policy forces lawmakers to assess the policy's potential negative or positive effects on a multiracial society. Here are the questions we ask:

Does the legislation explicitly address racial outcomes and work to eliminate racial disparities?

Will it increase access to public benefits and institutions for people of color?

Will it advance enfranchisement and full civic participation?

Will it protect against racial violence, profiling and discrimination?

Is the legislation enforceable? Are there mechanisms to ensure accountability?

We apply these criteria to produce a racial">http://www.arc.org/content/view/414/48/">racial justice legislative report card in California. Check out the number of Republicans elected from largely Republican districts who have to consider race more deeply because the demographics of their communities are changing. This year, we'll also release in Illinois and MInnesota. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that policies that address the needs of people of color in health care (translation requirements help Russian immigrants), education (requiring college prep curriculum in all high schools helps poor white students), and economic development (less discretion among mortage lenders also improve the situations of white people who aren't terrifically wealthy, while colorblind policies continue to leave people of color behind.