Census: Minority births top whites

[cali]

African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities made up 50.4 percent of U.S. births.
By TIM MAK | 5/17/12 6:12 AM EDT

For the first time, racial minorities now represent more than half of the children born in the U.S., according to new census figures

African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities made up 50.4 percent of U.S. births in the year ending July 2011, accounting for 2.02 million births, up from 37 percent in 1990, according to the AP.

During that time period, there were 1.99 million white births, 1.05 million Hispanic births, 0.61 million black births, 0.25 million births that were classified “two or more races,” 0.19 million Asian births, 0.07 million Native American births and 0.01 million Pacific Islander births.

“This is an important landmark,” Roderick Harrison, a former head of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, told the wire service. “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76431.html#ixzz1v7iIxz9w

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. I don't understand why, in these hard and truly f'd up times, people want to have kids

The very idea terrifies the hell out of me. The future looks like shit, the present is horrific, and people are mindlessly refusing to use birth control and thinking it's hilarious to bring kids to the world, and will probably leave those kids nothing to help them, so they'll have to fend against an ever-more-savage system of the right vs the rest.

[ananda]

2. Ermm

The stressors on lives account for this.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. Yup. There's more stress on people now than ever. But the more stress I have, the less stress

I want to put on myself, and kids require a LOT of everything. Also, to bring kids into a horrifically stressful time... well, it's just baffling to me. I guess some people handle stress better than I do maybe.

[sufrommich]

4. If people waited until perfect times to have kids,

we would all be long gone by now.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. I suppose so. nt

[The Link]

5. That is a highly offensive term you used.

It is really no better than those you are trying to insult.

[cali]

6. really? Want to explain the word you use in labeling conservatives?

Your sexism is shining through, pumpkin.

or it's something else and your idiot sexism, sweetpea.

[raccoon]

7. Think about it, why is this news. nt

[Romulox]

8. Since none of these babies have "white privilege", our country is about to get a lot more equal!

Er, right?

[Luminous Animal]

12. Actually, we will still be an overwhelmingly white country. 74% in fact...

Non-Hispanic whites @ 46%
Hispanic whites @ 28%

Hispanic whites are people like Carmen Diaz, Emilio Estevez, Andy Garcia, Christina Aguilera, etc.

Who are white Hispanics? They are white people who trace their origins to Spain (often via other countries in the Spanish-speaking world) just as Italian Americans are white people who trace theirs to Italy. Some are descended from Spanish missionaries who were present on the continent long before the United States was formed. (At one point in our history, we distinguished between lighter “European” Italians and swarthier “Mediterranean” ones, but that distinction is long in our past, just as the distinction between white Hispanics and the rest of the majority will surely fall by the wayside before 2050.)

http://www.alternet.org/media/151421/why_are_conservatives_scared_of_cameron_diaz/?page=entire

[Romulox]

13. Race is made up and arbitrary. There's no calculus by which we can determine people's "real" race.

[Luminous Animal]

14. I realize that but the article is reporting directly from census numbers (there is a link to the

excel sheet in the article).

By 2050, 74% of the people will be self-identified as white. Non-Hispanic whites and Hispanic whites.

[SoCalDem]

9. It's not surprising to me at all

In times of crisis, LOTS of people postpone childbearing, BUT if you are already poor, or see little if any chance of your circumstances improving, many cultures see babies as a hopeful/happy gift, regardless of their dire conditions.

If you look back in time, many of the upper-crusties managed to control their family size , while the "commoners" often had many children.. They did not have the pill then, so apparently at some point the husband was sent to his own room

Minorities are often poorer than their "white" counterparts, and often their religion stresses the importance of family. They also tend to cluster in familial living situations, so child care is a shared - multi-generational undertaking.