White men are a minority too, aren't they?

[Alphathree33]

Surely white men do not make up 50%+1 of the population of the united states.

Men as a whole barely make up 50%, and surely a whole bunch of them aren't white.

So aren't white men a minority too?

P.S. I know this sounds a little ridiculous but I seriously think "minority" is the wrong word to describe whatever it is we're trying to get at here as a society when we used the word.

 

[tasmanian]

Everyone is a minority.

 

[imported_Champ]

I'm a middle class white male aged 18-35...I am a minorty

 

[Alphathree33]

Originally posted by: tasmanian
Everyone is a minority.

Right... agreed. And in the words of Ayn Rand, we're all minorities of 1.

So isn't this word nonsense then? Sort of Orwellian, the way the media uses it? "Protecting minorities"... as in... protecting everyone??

I know that's not what they mean when they say it. I think they mean, "protecting everyone except white striaght christian males". Honestly, that's what they mean, right?

 

[IronWing]

I'm a white guy. I got no complaints about the hand life has dealt me.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: tasmanian
Everyone is a minority.

Hey, I was going to post this!

 

[Lean L]

mostly white ppl are the minority... well, problably american indians the most...

I laugh when ppl say asians are minorities. Realize that 1 in every 6 ppl is chinese.

 

[Crono]

Out of entire population of United States? Sure. That's not a fair gauge, though. Minority out of just men? No.

?

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

Originally posted by: tasmanian
Everyone is a minority.

Right... agreed. And in the words of Ayn Rand, we're all minorities of 1.

So isn't this word nonsense then? Sort of Orwellian, the way the media uses it? "Protecting minorities"... as in... protecting everyone??

I know that's not what they mean when they say it. I think they mean, "protecting everyone except white striaght christian males". Honestly, that's what they mean, right?

Do you order your strawmen wholesale or individually for each poorly constructed argument?

 

[techs]

And yet despite being a "minority" white guys have made up 99 percent of all Supreme Court Justices ever, all but one President, and 99 percent of all Senators and Representitives, ever.
Not to mention 99 percent of all CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, etc, etc.

I don't think white guys have much to worry about from "reverse" discrimination

 

[Lean L]

Originally posted by: techs
And yet despite being a "minority" white guys have made up 99 percent of all Supreme Court Justices ever, all but one President, and 99 percent of all Senators and Representitives, ever.
Not to mention 99 percent of all CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, etc, etc.

I don't think white guys have much to worry about from "reverse" discrimination

Careful, you're opening pandora's box.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

you are confusing majority with absolute majority. white men are not an absolute majority, which means they aren't over 50% of the population. i think demographically, the only group that could be considered an absolute majority is women since they make up over 50% of the population.

 

[Sumguy]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
you are confusing majority with absolute majority. white men are not an absolute majority, which means they aren't over 50% of the population. i think demographically, the only group that could be considered an absolute majority is women since they make up over 50% of the population.

The womans always holding me down

 

[n yusef]

I agree, "minority" is imprecise. The concept that we describe with terms like "majority" and "minority," is that of power. We often think of "the majority restricting the rights of the minority," when we should think of "the empowered restricting the rights of the powerless." Men have had no trouble deciding which rights are accorded to women, even though they make up the majority of the world's population. Colonialists have had no trouble oppressing the colonized, even when they were vastly outnumbered.

Population is only one aspect of social power. Often, it is used to obscure the realities of the world. For instance, men make up a minority of schoolteachers, yet they make up the majority of school administration. For men to claim powerlessness as school faculty is to examine population without considering other aspects of social power.

 

[Crono]

Originally posted by: n yusef
I agree, "minority" is imprecise. The concept that we describe with terms like "majority" and "minority," is that of power. We often think of "the majority restricting the rights of the minority," when we should think of, "the empowered restricting the rights of the powerless." Men have had no trouble deciding which rights are accorded to women, even though they make up the majority of the world's population. Colonialists have had no trouble oppressing the colonized, even when they were vastly outnumbered.

Population is only one aspect of social power. Often, it is used to obscure the realities of the world. For instance, men make up a minority of schoolteachers, yet they make up the majority of school administration. For men should not claim powerlessness as school faculty is to examine populations without considering other aspects of social power.

You hit the nail on the head :thumbsup: