superminority
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: superminorities
Etymology: From super + minority, variously involving super-'s separate meanings of "above", "more than", "excellent", or "powerful".
Senses: examples: text: A President and a “superminority" of Congress—41 percent of one house—in the exercise of the constitutional mandate to “ensure” that outlays do not exceed receipts, might kill or maim any program they did not like—social security, environmental, defense—so long as the President could hold the support of 41 percent of the members of one house of Congress.
ref: 1982, Rights of Employed Inventors:
text: Under this approach, a superminority of 34 Senators could prevent a sole executive agreement from enjoying the full force of the supremacy clause vis-a-vis state laws.
ref: 1993, Temple international and comparative law journal:
text: When the votes were counted, the superminority resolution revoking the pledge took 37 percent, but backers of the pledge also failed to win a majority, so the UAW found itself with no formal position on the crucial issue.
ref: 1995, Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit:
text: What my colleagues need to understand is that we are setting up, not a powerful supermajority, what we are doing is setting up a powerful superminority which will control the process.
ref: 1999, Congressional Record, page 6606:
glosses: A voting block which, although it has less than 50% of the vote, has sufficient numbers to prevent any other group from forming a supermajority.
examples: text: This is an escalating process until we have a highly privileged superminority with a vested interest in increasing its numbers and its power. At that point the people have become servants of the bureaucracy, rather than the bureaucracy being a service function of the government, working for the citizenry.
ref: 1979, Rodney Petersen, The philosophy of a peasant, page 244:
text: State governors clamor for state control. They fear local control could generate a hodge—podge of conflicting rules and that a state's solid waste policy could be dictated by a "superminority" of activists in a given county.
ref: 1992, Environmental Law Update, page 389:
text: Perhaps because of that, the Russian superminority became singled out as a target of nationalist attack.
ref: 2002, Mikhail A. Molchanov, Political culture and national identity in Russian-Ukrainian relations:
text: What, then, is the policy justification for reallocating power in this manner in the direction that Citizens United does, away from the majority and toward an already disproportionately powerful wealthy superminority.
ref: 2012, Kyle Langvardt, “The Sorry Case for Citizens United: Remarks at the 2012 Charleston Law Review and Riley Institute of Law and Society Symposium”, in Charleston Law Revue:
glosses: A minority group that wields disproportionate power.
examples: text: Although the idea that they are a superminority is a new one, the increase in Asian- American activism is the result of years of discrimination.
ref: 1987, Newsweek - Volume 109, Issues 18-26, page 12:
text: Assimilationist ideology of late has been refurbished by a neoliberal policy of multiculturalism, affording us a schizoid if pragmatic optic to handle this racializing dilemma. Mocking all hermeneutics of suspicion, the enigmatic superminority image of Asian Americans persists.
ref: 2002, E. San Juan Jr., Racism and Cultural Studies, →ISBN:
text: Since the arrival of Asian immigrants in the nineteenth century, and most notably since the 1960s, this ubiquitous superminority image has suggested that Asian Americans achieve economic success and gain societal acceptance through conservative values and hard work.
ref: 2006, Janis L. McDonald, Frank S. Ravitch, Pamela Sumners, Employment Discrimination Law, →ISBN:
glosses: An ethnic minority group that is seen as having outstanding abilities.
examples: text: White males find it inherently impossible to believe that a woman or minority can be competent and can be qualified. It's a very, very difficult thing. I have seen people who appeared to be genuinely sincere struggling with this, and they find it very, very difficult to conceive of women and minorities being qualified. What they do is they look for superwomen or superminorities.
ref: 1976, Affirmative Action in Employment in Higher Education:
text: Teachers and counselors offer a good resource for identification or potential Hispanic health professional students. However, I must point out a potential problem which I have personally encountered in working with secondary, undergraduate and professional school faculty. Often this group must be educated to the concept that it is not only the "superminority" student who already stands out as being a motivated achiever who should be identified.
ref: 1979, Paquita Vivó, Hispanic Mosaic: A Forum on Hispanic Health Concerns, page 33:
text: A white middle-level manager from a large bank aptly sums up the present situation in the corporate world regarding qualifications: "Most minority executives are superminorities — mediocrity is the privilege of the white male.
ref: 1981, John P. Fernandez, Racism and sexism in corporate life:
text: We suspect that the pressures present due to high expectations for minority presidents may lead to a "superminority" syndrome -- a condition conducive to fatigue and over-commitment.
ref: 1996, Community College Review - Volume 24, page 21:
glosses: A member of a minority group who has extraordinary abilities, often one who is identified as a leader and representative of the entire ethnic group.
examples: text: And out of the 326 village corporation shareholders, we only make up 37, so again, we are a superminority of our own corporation, so whatever the corporation decides to do, we have to go along with it because we don't have the votes to overpower the majority.
ref: 1999, United States Congress. House Committee on Resources, HR 2547, to provide for the conveyance of land interests to Chugach Alaska Corporation to fulfill the intent, purpose, and promise of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, →ISBN:
text: Sheer numbers are changing that, but despite Spanish surnames popping up everywhere, this usually gentle and hardworking superminority hasn't yet learned that the wheel that squeaks loudest gets the grease.
ref: 2011, Boze Hadleigh, Mexico's Most Wanted:
text: If the aforementioned bills fail to pass this year, these states will be left in a superminority of states in this country, which do not recognize the extreme problem of dating domestic abuse.
ref: 2012 October, Geoffrey Thomas Greenlees, “Drawing the Necessary Line: A Review of Dating Domestic Violence Statutes around the United States”, in Family Court Review,, volume 50, number 4:
glosses: A large minority group that comprises a significant percentage of the population or most of the minority population.
examples: text: There is the assumption, underlying this problem with minorities, that all minorities will get together and form some form of superminority constituency—otherwise they wouldn't be all that effective— and I don't see any validity to that.
ref: 1977, Martia Diamond., The Electoral College and The American Idea of Democracy:
text: Under the multicultural dispensation, Hispanics get to be considered “nonwhite”, as members of that global, monolithic “superminority” defined only by its opposition to the European ascendancy.
ref: 2010, J. R. Dunn, Time For Hate! Tree of Liberty Patriot's Fascism End the FED:
text: The fragility of the superminority government was offset somewhat by the popularity of the President, Traian Basescu (2004–), a former mayor of Bucharest.
ref: 2013, Jonathan Eagles, Stephen the Great and Balkan Nationalism, →ISBN:
glosses: Multiple minority groups, seen as a single coalition or group.
examples: text: This concept is legally established by federal court decisions that have decreed that black women can represent blacks, but may not represent women as a group or be considered a "superminority" in a class action.
ref: 2008, Barbara L Bernier, “Unholy Troika: Gender, Race and Religiosity in the 2008 Presidential Contest”, in Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, volume 15, pages 277–278:
text: The erasure of a queer of color faculty and the difficulties for the research team to understand an intersectional experience was evident from the beginning of the study when the author identified thos who are both LGBt and racial and ethnic minorities to be "superminorities" who were underrrepresented in the city of Bellingham, Washington, and the campus itself.
ref: 2016, Patricia A. Matthew, Written/Unwritten: Diversity and the Hidden Truths of Tenure, →ISBN, page 120:
glosses: A person who is a member of multiple minority groups.
Coordinate terms: qualified minority
plurality
relative majority
simple majority
absolute majority
qualified majority
supermajority