Word: superminority Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From super + minority, variously involving super-'s separate meanings of "above", "more than", "excellent", or "powerful". 1. 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. Example: 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. Example: 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. 2. A minority group that wields disproportionate power. Labels: broadly Example: 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. Example: 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. 3. An ethnic minority group that is seen as having outstanding abilities. Example: 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. Example: 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. 4. 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. Example: 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. Example: 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. 5. A large minority group that comprises a significant percentage of the population or most of the minority population. Example: 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. Example: 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. 6. Multiple minority groups, seen as a single coalition or group. Example: 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. Example: 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. 7. A person who is a member of multiple minority groups. Example: 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. Example: 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.