A Symposium on Power, Discrimination, and Identity: Introduction and Commentary

On March 14, 2018, the Brookings Institute issued a short press release entitled, “The US Will Become ‘MinorityWhite’ in 2045, Census Projects” (Frey 2018). The story, authored by William H. Frey, a Senior Fellow at Brookings and author of the book “Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America,” describes the dynamics of population growth in the United States and concludes that racial minorities will be “the primary demographic engine of the nation’s future growth. ” Frey (2018) noted that in the next 30 or so years, “Minorities will be the source of all of the growth in the nation’s youth and working-age population, most of the growth in its voters, and much of the growth in its consumers and tax base. ” The growing economic and political strength of racial minorities in the United States once again has brought race into the spotlight of American politics. Renewed attempts by politicians to stoke racist and xenophobic fears around the growing political and economic clout of Black and Brown communities, and the efforts of Black, Asian, and Latinx communities to take advantage of this moment by empowering group members and forming coalitional partners across racial minority groups, have resulted in what some might call a new American racial dilemma. This is unlike the racial dilemma described by Gunnar Myrdal (1944) in the first half of the twentieth century, in which America reckoned with a conflict between its cherished principles of equality and freedom, on the one hand, and the overt discriminatory treatment of Black Americans on the other. The modern racial dilemma represents a conflict between one of the most enshrined principles of American democracy—majority rule —and the increasing economic and political power of racial minorities resulting from their rapidly growing populations. The threat ofWhite Americans’ imminent loss of economic and political control vis-à-vis the democratic process raises a new and intriguing set of questions for the study of race and ethnic politics in theUnited States. Understanding howWhite Americans will respond to this threat—whether they will attempt to change the rules of democratic governance to ensure White political control in perpetuity, redefine Whiteness to make it more inclusive of certain racial minorities, or simply accept the inevitablemove to amultiracial democracy— poses a unique set of theoretical and methodological challenges for race and ethnic politics researchers. Departing from previous research that centered almost exclusively on a Black/ White racial framework, this modern racial dilemma necessitates a broader understanding of race that is inclusive of not only traditional racial groups but also groups that may be racialized as non-White, such as Muslim Americans and White ethnics. This modern racial framework also would necessitate an understanding of racial subgroup differentiations that might consider different racialized experiences within racial groups, such as those that exist at the intersections of race and gender or race and social/economic class. Additionally, to adequately understand this new racial dilemma, a modern racial framework would necessitate greater attention to coalitional politics between racial minority groups and Whites’ perceptions of threat. Each research agenda—the broadening of racial definitions, the acknowledgment of diversity in racialized experiences, the need to understand coalitional politics, and the nature and origins ofWhitethreat perceptions—explains different dimensions of the modern racial dilemma. Together, they characterize what we see as the new directions of racial politics research. The studies presented in this symposium broadly reflect this new direction of race and ethnic politics. Each article explores different aspects of this modern racial politics. All show how the experiences of people of color in America have shaped the American political system (i.e., public policy, political behavior, and political institutions) and how people of color have come to understand their position within this system. We briefly discuss how the studies represented in this symposium add to our understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of racial politics in America.