When the US Census bureau announced this morning that for the first time in US history, the majority of babies born in 2011 were not white, naturally my first thought was to see what paranoids and dum dums on the internet were saying about it, because I'm nothing if not a chronic hater. After all, this sort of topic is perfect idiot-bait — it hits all the notes necessary to strike a chord of fear in the hearts of America's racists. And the web, as this country's id's butthole, absolutely did not disappoint.
The data in question shows that more non-white babies were born last year, which means calling non-white babies "minorities" is becoming increasingly stupider, and also that the Duggars are losing. Part of the baby demographic shift was due to a higher birth rate among hispanics and the fact that the crappy economic picture prompted many white families to forego baby having. Analysts project that by the end of this century, non-white Americans will outnumber white Americans, a thought that strikes fear into octogenarian conservative xenophobes who will be dead long before "their" country is "taken away" from them by the Mexicans.
Anyway, the sort of person who uses the phrase "the white race" non-ironically is pretty upset with this development, another bit of evidence, in their mind, that minority women are unstoppable breeding machines with out of control sexuality and dangerous fecundity that must be kept out of America at all costs.
Readers of Fox Nation, that reliable bastion of whackadoodlery, rated the story of the nonwhite birth rate surpassing the white birth rate as "Scary." And commenters are frightened, but resigned. One said, "It was bound to happen..with anchor babies and pay raises for more chillrin..." Others, who clearly still don't understand the concept of "structural racism" having nothing to do with sheer numbers and everything to do with power, wondered if they'd get special consideration for entering "government school" now. You know, like all those Mexican children of undocumented farm workers who are applying for admission to Harvard, unseating deserving white applicants. Another said, "Not hard to believe. Los Angeles in the 1970's was overwhelmingly white. Now it's overwhelmingly latino. The latinos took over. Just look at the school demographics. That pretty much tells the story. This country is slowly being returned to Mexico with the help of politicians." Hard to argue with that!
Over at the Washington Post, one commenter can't wait to cash in on anticipated white minority status: "I'm been trying to get my white college age sons recognized as a minority at their college, because they are a minority - white - male - and enrolled in college — but the institution laughs at me and says I am misinformed. My grandchildren and great grandchildren will have to work very hard to organize in order to be recognized as a minority, and I believe this needs to be jump started ASAP in order to protect their rights."
Further up the net's sphincter, commenters at this message board weren't so cynically resigned and were more, uh, terrifyingly racist. "blah blah blah blah blah , you can now buy melanin and inject it ..lol you silly little monkey .... but what you can not buy is brains and work ethic , the only thing you know to do is how to fuck and spread like cockroaches , as soon as were gone and done supporting you , your demise will be allot worse than ours ... just look at africa , searching through shit for food , cant even build a fucking well ... primitive apes cant do anything bar rape ...." said one armchair sociologist. Another thinks that there's some big Mexican conspiracy afoot: "Look at the map, it's all the border states with Mexico, hmmm... almost seems like someone's trying to destroy a(ll) country's identity. Now who would want to do that..." Looks like Detective Asshole here has cracked the case!
And of course, a tour of internet racism wouldn't be complete with a Twitter do-si-do. Some users are totally misinterpreting the results of the Census data, claiming that, as white men, they're now in the "minority" in the US (in reality, white people make up about 64% of the US population, so unless the white men would lump themselves in with infants, they're not outnumbered by any stretch of the imagination). Others are clamoring for their moment to "whine" about "oppression" (which really makes them look like assholes, because holy living fuck did you fail every history class?) But my favorite (and by "favorite," I mean the one that makes me want to cry and walk off the edge of a train platform before having any white babies of my own) is the one that links the decline of the white birth rate to the legalization of gay marriage, "White babies in the minority... who says gay relationships (a white thing) aren't genocidal?" Not having babies is the same as murdering people based on their ethnic heritage, apparently.
And, of course, I would be in remiss if I didn't point out that a high birth rate among non-white women (who tend to be lower income than white women) is partially due to a lack of access to low cost contraception and abortion, two things conservatives have fought tooth and nail to prevent. It's the circle of life.
Native Americans, whose birth rate was eclipsed by an avalanche of white births a few hundred or so odd years ago, could not be reached for comment.