Demographers project that whites will become a minority in the U.S. around 2045, dropping below 50% of the population. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of white children fell by 2.8 million, or 7.1%. In contrast, nonwhite children grew by 6.1%.
In 2018, the last year for which data are currently available, the proportion of people in the U.S. under 18 years of age was just barely more white than nonwhite. However, children under 11 were more nonwhite than white.
In almost one-third of U.S. states, nonwhite children outnumber all white children under 18 in 14 states — including Nevada, Hawaii, Georgia and Maryland — plus the District of Columbia. The link I tried to provide to document this led to factfinder.census.gov, which is currently unreachable. Is it too much of a conspiracy theory to think it’s among the thousands of government sites Elon Musk and DOGE don’t want you to see?
Not enough white people isn’t a new problem in America. When Europeans supposedly discovered America, there were already more people of color than Europeans. In 1526, a group of enslaved Black people escaped their Spanish captors during the San Miguel de Gualdape Slave Rebellion. They mixed with Native Americans in what is now South Carolina and Georgia. In 1565, Spaniards (not exactly white) brought slaves to Saint Augustine. In 1619, a British ship landed in Jamestown with enslaved people.
Though the indigenous population took a hit from the diseases carried by Europeans, including smallpox, they easily outnumbered white people when America was founded. The Black population drastically increased, not only from the Transatlantic Slave Trade but by a systemic pattern of forced breeding to meet the demand for labor. When the international slave trade was ended in 1808, it was because a sufficient number of Black babies were being born to meet the needs. The means to the end often involved rape and forced pairings. Thomas Jefferson didn’t need to explain that to George Washington when he wrote to tell him that if each enslaved woman had a child every two years, he would see profits increase by 4% annually.
By the time America achieved independence from the British in 1776, several areas including some states like South Carolina had a majority Black population, mainly enslaved people. Before there were police forces, there were slave patrols to capture runaways and protect plantation owners from revolts. There was a fear of rebellion throughout American history, before and after slavery. Jefferson talked about having a “wolf by the ears.” Lincoln wished to deport the freed slaves to Liberia and Central America. He experimented with deportation on Cow Island near Haiti, which had disastrous results.
America initially solved its lack of whiteness by making more people white. Many people thought of as white today weren’t initially, in fact, whiteness wasn’t even a thing until the 1670s. The economic model then was based on indentured servitude. White and Black indentured servants often worked side by side, although not always treated equally. In 1640, a slave named Emmanuel was caught attempting to escape along with six European indentured servants. As a penalty, the Europeans had their terms of servitude extended. Emmanuel’s term wasn’t extended; he was branded with an “R” for runaway, he was already considered a servant for life, so there was no need to extend his service. Many Black indentured servants were illegally kept after their service should have expired. Many of them spoke little English and most were forbidden to read. Also in 1640, John Punch escaped along with two other servants. When captured, they were given an additional four years to serve their master, Punch was required to serve the rest of his natural life.
It was 1661 when Virginia first passed slavery laws, which is considered by some historians when slavery began in America, although Massachusetts had passed similar laws as early as 1641. While white indentured servants still existed, all enslaved people were Black (though not all Black people were enslaved). White masters were producing so many children via the rape of slave women, they had to change the law, not only condemning any children born to those women to a lifetime of slavery but also absolving white men of any responsibility for the children and any charges of rape.
William Spivey
1676 marked a dramatic change in indentured servitude. Virginia plantation owner Nathanial Bacon took matters into his own hands after his relative, Governor William Berkeley, wasn’t moving fast enough to rid the area of Native Americans so Bacon could own even more property. Berkeley was concerned the tribes would join forces and be impossible to control. Bacon gathered up his white and Black indentured servants along with his Black slaves, forming a militia to fight the various tribes that had been raiding the farms (defending their land). For their support, he promised them their freedom. Thousands of Virginians and their indentured servants joined Bacon and ultimately burned down Jamestown, then the capital of Virginia.
The thought of white and Black servants and slaves joining forces scared the shit out of colonists. It marked the end of heavy reliance on indentured servitude in favor of chattel enslaved people. Term limits on indentured servants gave way to a lifetime of slavery, making up for any labor shortage from the loss of white servants. The elite powers that created a wedge between white and Black people of similar low status. Even the poorest white person was placed above any Black person. By 1705, Virginia established its first slave codes, codifying white supremacy into law by doing the following:
- Established new property rights for enslavers
- Allowed for the legal, free trade of slaves with protections granted by the courts
- Established separate courts of trial
- Prohibited blacks, regardless of free status, from owning arms [weapons]
- Whites could not be employed by blacks
- Allowed for the apprehension of suspected runaways
The initial motive for pitting Black people against white was always economics. The threat of them working together against the elite was too great to allow them to merge. Whiteness was literally created to distinguish themselves from those they wished to control, and not all light-skinned people were initially allowed to be considered white. People not originally regarded as white in America included: Germans, Greeks, white Hispanics, Spaniards, Jews, Slavs, Italians, Afghans, Iranians, and Irish. The Immigration Act of 1790 only offered naturalization to, “any alien, being a free white person.” In 1923, the Supreme Court ruled that people of Indian descent were not white and couldn’t become citizens.
“The average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences” between Indians and white people.”
In 1925, an Armenian immigrant successfully argued his whiteness due to his family’s and country’s Christian traditions.” People of Jewish and Arab descent were generally considered white though many of them objected to the classification. The Census Bureau once proposed a new category to classify Middle Eastern and Northern African people in the 2020 Census, but it was abandoned.
This is how America arrived where it is today, trying to remain white when everything is working against that end. Once you understand there are those trying to maintain whiteness in a nation growing increasingly darker, many of our policies make more sense. We have an immigration policy that vafors those from Denmark and not from “shithole countries.” Systemic voter suppression is designed to make it harder for minorities (and youth) to vote. Black history is either erased or homogenized, in part to quell undying rumblings about reparations.
We’ve seen an increase in white supremacy groups and militias while the FBI focuses on “Black Identity Extremists.” A man raised in South African apartheid has been installed to bring knowledge of how a white minority can maintain power to this government and nation. Harry Truman integrated the federal government in 1948, Elon Musk and Donald Trump are reversing that now.
America is running out of white people. The election of a Black president caused some people to go insane. America went and found the polar opposite and has now elected him twice despite his negligence during the COVID-19 crisis that ravaged the world. Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Trump golfed. Part of the problem will be resolved by making more people white. Perhaps some of the darker Hispanics or Asians will be granted entry. Black people can gain entry case-by-case if they prostrate themselves sufficiently. Making public statements like, “America is not a racist country,” that “during Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” will get you partial entry. That acceptance will forever be conditional based on what you’ve done for them lately.
In a perfect world, America would gradually become browner and nobody would notice or care. We are likely to see more desperation from those unable to accept the inevitable. America will ultimately have fewer white people and we need to challenge and address the systemic inequities keeping us apart.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.