It Was a Terrifying Census for White Nationalists
Aug. 15, 2021, 3:00 p.m. ET
By Charles M. Blow
Opinion Columnist
For some of us, the census data released on Thursday was fascinating. For others, it was, I would presume, downright frightening.
Much of what we have seen in recent years — the rise of Donald Trump, xenophobia and racist efforts to enshrine or at least extend white power by packing the courts and suppressing minority votes — has been rooted in a fear of political, cultural and economic displacement.
The white power acolytes saw this train approaching from a distance — the browning of America, the shrinking of the white population and the explosion of the nonwhite — and they did everything they could to head it off.
They tried to clamp down on immigration, both unlawful and lawful. They waged a propaganda war against abortion, and they lobbied for “traditional family values” in the hopes of persuading more white women to have more babies. They orchestrated a system of mass incarceration that siphoned millions of young, marriage-age men, disproportionately Black and Hispanic, out of the free population.
They refused to pass gun control laws as gun violence disproportionately ravaged Black communities. …
On every level, in every way, these forces, whether wittingly or not, worked to prevent the nonwhite population from growing. And yet it did.
… Meanwhile, the white population, in absolute numbers, declined for the first time in the history of the country. …
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