Quick Look at the Racial Groups in the United States

As you know, the United States collects data on race. Here’s the stated reason:

Information on race is required for many Federal programs and is critical in making policy decisions, particularly for civil rights. States use these data to meet legislative redistricting principles. Race data also are used to promote equal employment opportunities and to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018)

So, look at Figure 2.1, what box do you check? What box does someone with parents from different racial groups check? What box does someone who was born in the United States, but whose family is from the Middle East, check? Or someone who was born in Pakistan but who becomes a U.S. citizen? What about a child whose parents are Black, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, and White?

Race and ethnicity are complicated, but the government tries to simplify them with racial categories. According to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as reported in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WONDER database (2016, Point 2),

to provide flexibility, it is preferable to collect data on race and ethnicity separately. If separate race and ethnic categories are used, the minimum designations are:

1. Race:
   • American Indian or Alaskan Native
   • Asian or Pacific Islander
   • Black
   • White
2. Ethnicity:

• Hispanic origin
• Not of Hispanic origin

The U.S. Census Bureau recognizes that it "must adhere to the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards on race and ethnicity which guide the Census Bureau in classifying written responses to the race question" (2018). Racial groups are thus defined in the United States as follows (adapted from CDC WONDER, 2016, Point 1):

• American Indian or Alaskan Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.
• Asian or Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, or the Pacific Islands. This area includes, for example, China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippine Islands, and Samoa.
• Black: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.
• Hispanic: A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. 
• White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East.

The Census Bureau (2018) reports that

for the first time in Census 2000, individuals were presented with the option to self-identify with more than one race and this continued with the 2010 Census. People who identify with more than one race may choose to provide multiple races in response to the race question. For example, if a respondent identifies as "Asian" and "White," they may respond to the question on race by checking the appropriate boxes that describe their racial identities and/or writing in these identities on the spaces provided.

U.S. Demographic Trends: Race

If you take a look at each racial group in U.S. society, what trends do you see? What differences exist when you compare the groups, especially against the default (White)? What does this mean for companies? What does it mean for communicators?

 

The so-called "browning" of America refers to shifts in our nation’s demographics. Some factors contributing to these shifts include 

• immigration, 
• interracial marriage, 
• changes in racial category designations, 
• high birth rates, and 
• lower death rates.

William H. Frey discusses these shifts in The Brookings Institution's blog The Avenue:

New census population projections confirm the importance of racial minorities as the primary demographic engine of the nation’s future growth, countering an aging, slow-growing, and soon to be declining white population. The new statistics project that the nation will become “minority white” in 2045. During that year, whites will comprise 49.7% of the population in contrast to 24.6% for Hispanics, 13.1% for blacks, 7.9% for Asians, and 3.8% for multiracial populations. (2018)

Another key demographic trend to note is that the Hispanic population is typically young, with a median age of 28.

Religious Landscape

One fact remains by looking at these trends: Our nation is becoming younger and more diverse. That diversity also includes changes to the religious landscape.

In 2004, comedian Dave Chappell performed a “Racial Draft” skit on his Comedy Central’s Chappell Show to determine the racial and ethnic identity of some of our society’s “mixed race” celebrities. In this satire on race, set up like an NFL draft, golfer Tiger Woods is claimed by the African American delegation, the musical group Wu Tang Clan by the Asian delegation and singer Lenny Kravitz by a Jewish delegation.  Jewish? Why did Chappell include religion as a racial category? Likely because religions are a significant part of identity that we are born into, adopt, and even change. Just like race and ethnicity, religious traditions and expressions are often represented inaccurately by the media.

Religious identities can be visible or invisible. Dress, rituals and practices, food, and places of worship immediately distinguish religion groups that exist around the world. In the media, religions are often used to create certain types of characters, tell certain kinds of stories, and promote certain value systems.

Jewish Americans represents about 3% of the United States population based on 2017 figures released by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, a nonprofit organization designed to strengthen the US-Israeli relationship. (AICE, n.d.)

Muslims and those who practice the Islam faith are on the rise in the United States. And, so is the bias they receive in the media and Isalmophobia. A 2017 Pew Research Center demographic analysis estimates globally the number of babies born to Muslims is expected to modestly exceed births to Christians. Pew Research estimates there are 3.4 million Muslims in the U.S, representing about 1% of the populations, and nearly 82% living in the US are American citizens. That includes 42% who were born in the U.S. and 40% who were born abroad but who have naturalized. (PEW, 2017)

Only a week into his administration, Donald Trump, the 45^th President of the United States signed an executive order now known as the first rendition of the Muslim ban, or the travel ban. Sikh men fit within a racialized caricature some people have of Muslims and there are many reports in the news that they too are victims of private Islamophobia.

There are no official U.S. government statistics on the number of Muslim Americans—or, figures on the size of any religious group for that matter. That’s because the U.S., the Census Bureau does not collect information on the religious identification of residents. Demographers use surveys like the ones PEW takes to calculate a rough estimate of the number of Muslims who currently reside in the country.

Globally, according to PEW, there is not one single country that accounts for more than 15% of adult Muslim immigrants to the United States (15% are from Pakistan). The countries with the next-highest totals are Iran (11% of Muslim immigrants), India (7%), Afghanistan (6%), Bangladesh (6%), Iraq (5%), Kuwait (3%), Syria (3%) and Egypt (3%). (PEW, 2017)

We will discuss stereotypes of both groups later in Lesson 5. Understanding the demographics of our audiences—whether they are Black, Latino, Asian, Jewish or Muslim—is key to developing effective communications strategies. The Pew Research Center is an outstanding resource for communicators and marketing professionals aiming to target these groups.

As communicators we must understand that religion is often an aspect of our audience’s culture and ancestry, like race and ethnicity, that we must respect, recognize and represent accurately if used in outreach efforts and message strategy.