When in the year 2000, the Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had overtaken Blacks as the largest minority group in America, I wrote an article I called The End of Black America. At that point readers thought I was just being hysteric.
In fact, being that Barack Obama is the Democratic Party candidate for President just eight years after could still be considered a ‘failure of imagination’ on my part.
The truth however is that Black America is witnessing its first and last hurrah. Though Hispanics surpassed Blacks in population eight years ago, they are still behind in the numbers that can vote. Each year, as hundreds of thousands of Hispanics born in America get to voting age and as many immigrants become citizens, the Hispanic voting population increases. It will eventually surpass those of Blacks.
That must be the strategic thinking behind New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson’s decision to ditch the Clintons and hang his tent with Obama. He must have estimated that the swing voters of tomorrow who would be wooed by all parties would be the Black voters. Few years down the road, the real competition for top political positions in America would be between Hispanics and Whites.
That is why the latest census figure announcing that the relegation of Whites to a minority position would occur earlier than expected is very significant. The Census Bureau had initially estimated that the landmark would be reached in 2050. In a recent update, the Bureau reported that going by the current immigration trends and birth rates of Hispanics, it would actually occur in 2042.
There are wide range implications of this. The most important of which is that it would disrupt the very thing that made America unique in the world- that is, that there is a place in America for everyone. With American population jumping to over 400 million within the same period, those people in America who now have somewhere to run to when people of a different color or race move into their neighborhood will run out of places to run to. For the first time since Columbus, America would then be forced to confront its diversity in a way it had never done before.
Knowing America and its penchant for surprises, nobody can predict accurately how that would be handled.
Essentially, Hispanics are poised to retake the America they lost during the Spanish-American wars. And maybe more… How they would play their hand is unclear. And how Whites who have created this grandiose country would respond is anyone’s guess.
As this day approaches, you can be sure that it is surely going to be a new America- one that the founding fathers did not envisage. It may be one that their Constitution may be ill-equipped to handle.
Because America always finds a way, we hope this time it will, too. Otherwise…
