What does it mean to be a member of the dominant group? My claimed ancestry is English American or “Yankee” (in the sense of a multigenerational inhabitant of New England). For many in my ethnic group, the strongest identity is simply “American.” As Stanley Lieberson (1985) discovered in an analysis of US Census data, white Protestant Americans whose families have lived in the United States for many generations are most likely to self-identify as just “American.” Indeed, as I will discuss later, the ability to claim “American” identity is an important marker of dominant-group status. More recently, since the 1950s, the label “WASP” (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) has often been applied to my group, reflecting the assimilation of other European ethnic groups into the Anglo-American core and the broadening of group boundaries (Glazer & Moynihan, 1963: 15). Whatever the label, the important point is, as John Myers (2003: 44) has put it, that “the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant group is the quintessential dominant group in our society.”
Like many of the dominant-group students in my race and ethnic relations classes (for whom I assign an “ethnicity as personal experience” or “family background” project), I would have had difficulty writing this essay as a college student. Growing up, I never thought of myself as ethnic. I was “just like everyone else,” an “American,” as opposed to those who were “different” and could claim a specific ethnic affiliation. Most sociologists would not have seen me as ethnic either. The then-popular term “white ethnic,” which was applied to such groups as Irish Americans, Italian Americans, or Jewish Americans, implied that there were white “nonethnics”—people who were just part of the “mainstream” or “larger society.” Consequently, very little attention has been paid to the nature of dominant-group identity (Feagin & Feagin, 1996: 71–72; Doane, 1997a), as opposed to dominant-group treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. As I have argued elsewhere (Doane, 1997a), this “hidden” nature of dominant-group identity has assisted the dominant group in maintaining its position of power and influence. For me, developing an understanding of dominant-group identity has helped me to understand the history of my family.
Marking the Center: The Doane Family
On my father’s side of the family, which is where I locate my ethnic identity, I am a twelfth-generation English American. Other branches of the family tree contain later immigrants from England and, on my mother’s side, nineteenth-century immigrants from Scotland. All evidence, however, suggests that they assimilated rapidly into the Anglo-American group as what Charlotte Erickson (1972) has called “invisible immigrants.” In any event, it is through my father’s family that I take both my surname and my sense of heritage.
My first-generation ancestor, John Doane, migrated from England to the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts around 1630 (Doane, 1960 [1902]; unless otherwise noted, all historical family information in this section is taken from this work). Interestingly, the family history refers to him as having “settled” in Plymouth, as opposed to more accurate terms such as colonized or even invaded. I do think that it is important to recognize that my ancestor, along with others of his time, were immigrants, even though their immigrant experience was different from that of other groups. While little is known as to where John Doane came from or why he migrated, I must assume that it was for economic opportunity, religious freedom, or both. Because he almost immediately came to occupy a position of relative prominence in Plymouth Colony (a 1633 document lists him as a member of the Governor’s Council, along with Myles Standish and William Bradford), he clearly did not experience life at the bottom of the stratification system (e.g., as a hired laborer or as an indentured servant). As a very early immigrant, he also would not have had the experience of having to adapt to a dominant group within the emerging colonial society.
In 1644 or 1645, dissatisfied with the lack of prosperity and economic opportunity in Plymouth, John Doane and many others relocated to Nauset (later Eastham) on Cape Cod. The land in Nauset is listed as being “purchased” from Native Americans for “moose skins, boats, wampum, and little knives.” As we now know, Native American and English notions of land ownership and use were dramatically different. Native Americans viewed land as a resource to be used, while the English treated land as a “commodity” with perpetual ownership rights (Richter, 2001: 54). What is clear is that my ancestor (and his descendants) certainly benefited from the transaction. From all accounts, John Doane appeared to have at least a comfortable economic status after the move to Eastham, as his original land purchase was 200 acres. He also had considerable local influence as a deacon, selectman, and deputy to the Colony Court until his death in 1685 at the age of 95.
For the next five generations, my ancestors remained in Eastham, living as relatively prosperous farmers and frequently serving as town officials. Living on Cape Cod, my family was not on the front lines of armed conflict with Native Americans in New England, conflicts such as King Philip’s War in 1675 and 1676. While it is difficult to say for certain, I suspect that they would have shared the prevailing attitude of New Englanders, which was to view Native Americans as inherently heathen, lazy, barbaric, and a threat to civilized Christian society. Historian Ronald Takaki (1993: 38) has termed this the “racialization of savagery,” the perspective that Native Americans were incapable of civilization. These attitudes justified the conquest and taking of Native American land and enabled Europeans to view the devastating epidemics (probably smallpox) that decimated Native American communities as “God’s divine intervention.” Even though the “frontier” soon moved far away from my ancestors, the conflicts between English colonists and Native Americans set the stage for two centuries of conflict across the American continent. While my family was increasingly removed from later conflict with and the removal of Native Americans, they were members of a racial-ethnic group that clearly benefited from the territorial expansion of the United States.
Once Native American communities had been eliminated, evidence suggests that my ancestors would have encountered little ethnic or racial diversity during their first two centuries in the United States. As Vincent Parillo (1994: 528) has observed, the initial population of colonial America in 1689 was about 80 percent English. Even though the population of the colonies became more diverse (by the 1790 census English Americans were about 49 percent of the population) with the involuntary immigration of enslaved Africans and the immigration of non-English Europeans (e.g., Germans, Scots-Irish), New England remained the most English area and Massachusetts the most English state (Parillo, 1994). Out on Cape Cod, my ancestors probably would have had little exposure to the increasing diversity of the colonies; there would have been little to dissuade them from the belief that English culture and customs were universal.
What emerged from colonial America was what can be called the Anglo-Protestant “core” of American society (Feagin & Feagin, 1996). As the United States became an independent nation, its culture and institutions had a distinct English influence. More significantly, its ideologies and policies concerning race and ethnic relations have reflected the perspectives and interests of Anglo-Americans (Marger, 2003). Throughout US history, other ethnic and racial groups have been expected to adhere to these practices, a phenomenon Milton Gordon (1964) has referred to as “Anglo-conformity.” As “old stock” Americans, my ancestors had the advantage of navigating in familiar social and cultural waters.
In the sixth generation, my ancestor Samuel Dill Doane died and was buried at sea during a voyage to the West Indies in 1809. While I cannot say for certain whether he participated in the slave trade, we do know that the growth of the Atlantic trade and the maritime industry in New England was due in large part to the economic activity generated by the slave trade. Vessels from New England participated in the “Triangle Trade,” which involved bringing slaves from Africa to the Americas, raw materials to Europe, and finished goods to the American colonies. Ships from New England carried farm products and manufactured goods (bricks, candles, building materials) to the West Indies and returned with molasses, sugar, spices, and even a few enslaved Africans. This trade stimulated the New England economy and enabled the growth of farming, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and distilling—to the extent that New England in 1770 had perhaps the highest standard of living in the world (Bailyn, cited in Lang, 2002: 9). Thus, whether my ancestors participated in the slave trade is immaterial. All of New England (and the United States) profited either directly or indirectly.
While there is the temptation for white Americans with roots in New England or the North to seek to distance themselves from slavery, the historical reality is more complicated. Slavery did exist in the North; it was legalized in Massachusetts in 1641 (Feagin & Feagin, 1996: 239) and persisted in New England until after the Revolutionary War. According to the Hartford Courant (2002: 19), the first US Census in 1790 recorded 3,763 slaves in New England, the majority of whom were in Connecticut. I cannot say definitively whether any of my ancestors owned slaves, although higher status (e.g., a deacon or a more prosperous farmer) increased the likelihood of an individual being a slave owner. A recent listing of Connecticut slave owners in 1790 (Hartford Courant, 2002: 18) included a Seth Doan (sic) of Chatham as owning two slaves; he appears to be a descendant of John Doane and, hence, a relative (another part of my family tree, involving my maternal grandfather, disappears in Texas in the early twentieth century and I have no knowledge of what their involvement with slavery may have been). Ultimately, whether any of my direct ancestors owned slaves is almost beside the point. They participated in a society that condoned slavery and benefited from the economic contributions of slaves.
After the death of Samuel Dill Doane at sea, his widow remarried and moved to the small town of Dana in central Massachusetts. My great-great-great-grandfather, Leonard Doane, was a sailor and later a sea captain. Upon leaving the sea, he engaged in an unsuccessful business (with Charles Goodyear and others) to place rubber upon cloth. After losing all of his money in this venture, he returned to Dana and made his living by manufacturing palm leaf hats. According to the family history (Doane, 1960 [1902]: 279), Leonard Doane was an abolitionist, opposed to slavery, and an active member (a state representative) of the Free-Soil Party, which was against the expansion of slavery into the western territories acquired from Mexico (I think that it is also important to recognize antiracist traditions among white Americans). He was also described as an active supporter, along with his son, my great-great-grandfather George Wood Doane, of the Temperance movement and in favor of prohibition of alcohol. While I do not know what motivated them to support this movement, I do know that there was a historical relationship between Protestantism, antislavery, temperance, and nativism—negative attitudes toward immigrants (Roediger, 1991: 152). One of the forces that propelled the Temperance movement was the association (stereotype) in the minds of many Americans between drunkenness and immigrant groups, most notably the Germans and the Irish (Billington, 1963 [1938]: 195).
While my great-great-grandfather worked initially as a salesman (for patent medicines), he returned to Dana and made his living first as a manufacturer of palm leaf goods, and then later as a farmer and carpenter. Subsequent generations—my great-grandfather and my grandfather—also lived in Dana and worked as farmers and carpenters. In fact, my father was born while the family was still living in Dana. During this period, from the 1850s through the 1920s, my family members lived in relative isolation in a small, racially and ethnically homogeneous town in rural Massachusetts. It would be easy to describe them as removed from the ethnic and racial issues of this era: emancipation, reconstruction, and the emergence of formal racial segregation; increased European immigration (especially from Southern and Eastern Europe); the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment and the eventual imposition of immigration quotas; the debate over and eventual restriction of immigration from China and Japan; and the final conflicts with Native Americans in the western United States and the creation of the reservation system. At the same time, their lives were shaped by—and they directly or indirectly benefited from—the evolution of American society, including industrialization and economic growth facilitated by immigrant labor and by the exploitation of African American, Mexican American, and Chinese American labor. I do not know what my ancestors’ opinions were on these questions; however, I suspect that, like most people, they were products of their times and either supported or did not oppose these developments. In any event, there is no record of strong advocacy on either side of these issues.
What is important to emphasize here is that generations upon generations of dominant-group members—including my family—have benefited from the social and institutional practices of American society. Exclusion, segregation, and the failure to enforce treaties and ensure equal protection under the law certainly reduced competition and created economic opportunities for dominant-group members. Political and social practices, from voting access to citizenship requirements to educational opportunities, all served to reproduce group power from generation to generation. Government policies, from fugitive slave laws to New Deal legislation to welfare policy to tax policy (e.g., the mortgage interest deduction), have generally given disproportionate benefits to dominant-group members. In contemporary terms, the dominant group has always enjoyed a home field advantage.
Following the flooding of Dana in the mid-1930s to create the Quabbin Reservoir (the water supply for metropolitan Boston), my grandfather moved his family to the mill town of Springfield, Vermont. There he worked in a variety of industrial positions, eventually rising to some sort of supervisory position in one of the factories. From my father’s accounts, and my own research on ethnic relations in northern New England, Springfield would have been a much more ethnically diverse environment than any place in which my family had previously lived. I recall from my father’s stories an awareness of the ethnic backgrounds of his high school classmates and some sense of low-level intergroup conflict. These decades (the 1930s and 1940s) would have been the time of the gradual but uneven incorporation and assimilation of European immigrant groups (Irish Americans, French Canadians, German Americans, Polish Americans, and so on) amidst the struggles of the Depression and World War II. I had limited contact with my grandparents’ generation; however, I do recall hearing occasional ethnic or racial slurs in adult conversations. As I was to learn later in life, one dilemma for dominant-group members is how to respond when racist statements are made by family members or close friends.
My father left Springfield to attend a seminary in Maine, and then joined the army near the end of World War II (he served with a medical unit in Alaska). After the war, aided by his veteran’s benefits, he attended first the state university and then a theological seminary. I do not recall any specific discussion of the topic, yet I would assume that his environment was both mostly white, yet more diverse than that of previous generations. My mother, whom my father met while in college, had a broader range of intergroup experiences. She spent her early childhood in Texas, then, after her mother married her stepfather, who was a career army officer, moved with her parents through a variety of postings including Panama, a series of bases in the United States, and then high school experiences in postwar Beijing and Japan. Her classmates at the Peking American School came from a variety of nations, including local Chinese students. I would describe both of my parents as broadminded and antiracist, as evident in my father’s ministry and my mother’s work in community organizations. They certainly encouraged my siblings and me to be inclusive and to see diversity as positive.
Nevertheless, the world in which my siblings and I grew up was not a diverse one. The small New Hampshire towns in which we first lived and the Maine coastal town in which I spent summers were extremely homogeneous in terms of race and ethnicity. Even later, when my father’s pastoral career led us to three different communities in suburban Boston in the 1960s and early 1970s (late elementary school through high school), race and ethnicity played a very limited role. There was no meaningful residential integration in any of these communities. I do vaguely recall identification and verbal jousting between Irish American and Italian American classmates, and ethnic slurs directed toward the latter group, but by the late 1960s, ethnic divisions among middle-class white Americans were becoming increasingly symbolic. In terms of my own ethnic identity, I only had a sense of just being present—of being “just like everybody else.” This seemed also to be true for my Protestant European American classmates: They had either assimilated or were members of the dominant group to begin with.
Those intergroup experiences that I did have were somewhat unique in nature and linked to my father’s work as a Congregational minister. We had missionaries and divinity students from sub-Saharan Africa and India stay with us at times, which certainly encouraged me to be aware of the diversity of the population of the world. I dimly recall my parents discussing events in the civil rights movement (I was only eight at the time of the March on Washington) or guest speakers coming to the church to talk about their role in the civil rights movement, but everything seemed very far away. Most of the events of the mid- and late 1960s (e.g., the later events in the civil rights movement, the urban rebellions) were merely headlines on the newspapers that I delivered on my afternoon paper route.
By high school, I began to become more aware of the scope of racial injustice in the United States. My parents’ conversations began to have more impact. I remember, for example, their disgust upon moving to a new community and learning that some influential members of the church had been involved in discouraging a prominent African American athlete from purchasing a home in their neighborhood. I recall them successfully encouraging the church to provide office space for a former divinity school classmate of my father’s who had left the ministry to work as an antiracist activist and consultant. Through the church, and at the encouragement of my mother, I spent a number of Saturdays in high school as a volunteer with a Boston community organization that rehabilitated housing in a low-income, predominantly African American neighborhood. This gave me firsthand exposure to the effects of residential segregation and concentrated poverty: It was clear that the neighborhood was very different from the suburban community in which we lived. I even recall coming home with copies of Nation of Islam and Black Panther Party newspapers that I picked up on the street. While I was becoming aware of some of the “costs” of being black in American society, I never really thought about the implications of being white.
One particular event does stand out in my memory. While volunteering with the community organization, I occasionally spent the lunch hour eating my bag lunch and answering the telephone while the office staff took a break. One day, a middle-aged African American man came into the office and inquired about employment possibilities. When I informed him that I had no knowledge of any openings and that he should return when the full-time staff members were available, I was shocked by his clear skepticism and repeated questioning of my statement. It was only later in the day that I realized that the communication gap between us was undoubtedly shaped by race. I think that it was the first time that I was ever aware that social interactions were affected by race. As a white American, I had the privilege of living for sixteen years before facing this reality.
After high school, new experiences continued to expand my awareness of ethnic and racial diversity. Before entering college, I spent six months working in one of the last textile mills (historically a significant employer of new immigrants) in Manchester, New Hampshire. Compared to my previous experiences in school and in my home communities, this was like entering the United Nations. My co-workers included, among others, Mexican Americans, French Canadians, Greek Americans, and Polish Americans. As I encountered linguistic barriers and cultural differences, and observed ethnic rivalry and conflict (verbal jousting), I began to appreciate the impact of group identities on everyday life. My own identity, however, remained unexamined as I focused upon the “differences” of others.
My undergraduate college experience did little to encourage examination of this issue, as the small liberal arts institution that I attended was not diverse. The first time that I ever recall thinking about my own ethnic identity in any concrete manner was near the end of my college career. By this time I had been exposed to “ethnic food,” which was always the cuisine of “someone else.” One week I happened to glance at the food section of the Boston Globe and saw an article on “Yankee food”—New England boiled dinner, codfish cakes, red flannel hash, smoked finnan haddie, “Indian pudding,” and the like—dishes that regularly appeared on our family dinner table during my childhood. For the first time, I remember thinking, “I’m ethnic, too.” This insight also encouraged me to think about how other aspects of small-town New England life, the stuff of Norman Rockwell paintings, were not universal but represented a particular ethnic and cultural heritage. I began to appreciate the ways in which dominant-group experiences were embedded or hidden in what was presented as “American” traditions. We “see” St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, Cinco de Mayo, Kwanzaa, and Rosh Hashanah as “ethnic” holidays, but we generally fail to recognize the ethnic origins of Thanksgiving, even though the story and symbols are part of an Anglo-American origin myth (Loewen, 1992, 1995).
My first professional position after college, as a researcher on a one-year study of the occupational and educational status of Franco-Americans in New Hampshire, represented another step in my education. As part of this research, I delved into the literature on assimilation, the experiences of immigrant groups, issues of ethnic stratification, and the history of French Canadians and Franco-Americans (see Doane, 1979, 1983). This enabled me to begin to understand issues of ethnic change and assimilation, as well as the impact of pressures for assimilation, pressures that I realized emanated from my group. Through my interactions with Franco-American scholars and activists, I also came to appreciate the “costs” of assimilation, the struggle to preserve group customs and heritage, and the greater sense of solidarity that goes along with being part of a nondominant ethnic group. In contrast, I began to realize that my dominant-group status did not revolve around these types of experiences, but instead focused on the “differences” of others. To a significant degree, dominant-group identity is grounded in not being a member of a minority group.
Throughout my graduate studies in sociology and the early years of my teaching career, I continued to study issues of race and ethnicity. My doctoral dissertation (Doane, 1989) was an in-depth study of the historical evolution of ethnic and racial identities and inequality in the United States and South Africa. This work left me convinced that power and economic competition are at the core of race and ethnic relations and intergroup conflict, and that dominant groups use society’s institutions in order to reinforce and maintain their advantages. On a personal level, I came to a fuller understanding of how the history of my group was inextricably connected to relations of domination and subordination—that much of our “success” had come at the expense of other groups. Since then, I have reexamined many of the cultural and historical images that I grew up with, from the “settling” of New England and the American West, to the realities of life in small-town or suburban middle-class white communities, to the redefinition of what it means to be an “American.” This process has not always been easy, since being a member of a dominant group in many ways limits our ability to see the nuances of race and ethnic relations. It is much easier to see social and institutional practices as “normal” instead of examining them for ways in which they reflect and reinforce the position of the dominant group.
During the past decade, one major focus for my research and writing has been to analyze the social role of dominant-group ethnic and racial identities. I began with a paper titled “The Myth of WASP Non-Ethnicity” (Doane, 1992), in which I explored the ways dominant-group identities were different from nondominant identities and how these differences affected race and ethnic relations. Since then, I have written a number of pieces analyzing dominant-group ethnicity and “whiteness” (Doane, 1997a, 1997b, 2003). I have also incorporated these issues into my teaching, and over the years I have encouraged students to confront the nature of whiteness. Despite all of this work, however, I find that it still takes me additional effort to “see” racial issues and the role of whiteness. Being a member of the dominant group makes it that much more difficult to see race relations clearly. White-blindness continues to affect intergroup relations.
Over the past few decades, many things have changed. Part of my family has moved geographically from our northern New England base. We have married and adopted across ethnic and racial lines that would have been impermeable a couple of generations ago. The old ethnic divisions among European Americans appear to be largely irrelevant. Our workplaces are in some cases considerably more diverse than those of our ancestors. We have friendships or relationships with neighbors and co-workers that are more diverse than ever before. At the same time, we all live in predominantly white neighborhoods, work in predominantly white workplaces, and move in a largely white social environment. Our intergroup interactions are largely on “home fields,” and we generally have the option of becoming involved or not in the racial issues of our community and our society. In a lot of ways, many things have not changed.
Dominant-Group Identity and the Twenty-First Century
So what does it mean to be a member of the dominant group in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century? In general, there is still a lower level of self-awareness when it comes to race and ethnicity. White Americans tend not to think about being white because they do not have to; Anglo-Americans still have a tendency to think of themselves as “American” when they consider issues of ethnicity. At the same time, I believe that there is an increasing debate about what it means to be an “American.” Past assumptions that “American” is equivalent to white or Anglo-American are still prevalent, but they are being challenged by ideas such as multiculturalism, a rethinking of history, and a reevaluation of what constitutes “American” literature, art, or music. Perhaps this debate is particularly evident in the university environment where I work, but it is also making its way into the larger society.
The dominant group itself has undergone change. Over the centuries, the boundaries of the dominant group have expanded to include British Americans (Scots, Scots-Irish, Welsh), then Protestant European groups, and now to where it has become a generalized “white European American” identity. This has involved not only the assimilation of non-English groups, but also the evolution of the “Anglo core culture” into a more generalized European American culture. As I have argued elsewhere, this has been to the advantage of the dominant group, for by absorbing other European groups, it has been able to maintain its social, political, and economic advantages in the face of substantial immigration (Doane, 1997a: 388).
Dominant-group status has served to benefit its members over the years in a variety of ways. While some whites and English Americans have benefited more than others (social class does make a difference), as a group we have enjoyed easier access to social resources and less competition from groups who have been excluded from full participation. For example, my siblings and I have all attained middle- to upper-middle-class positions in society. On one hand, it would be easy to attribute our relative success to individual effort—our education was through our own efforts and we have all worked hard in our chosen fields. On the other hand, we have been beneficiaries of a system that for members of our group was more likely to reward effort. We were able to attend better than average schools; we had easier access to college, housing, and mortgage loans; and we benefited from assumptions of individuality and trustworthiness. While life has had its struggles, we never had to confront the kinds of obstacles faced by peoples of color in the United States. As Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro have noted in their book Black Wealth, White Wealth (1995), this has translated into higher levels of wealth for white Americans, even when compared with African Americans of the same income level. Higher levels of wealth in turn create more opportunities for the future—and for future generations.
What can we say about the present state of the dominant side of dominant-minority relations? In some, but not all, cases, there appears to be a greater sense of inclusiveness. According to survey researchers, attitudes of white Americans toward peoples of color have become more egalitarian and inclusive (e.g., Schuman et al., 1997). I see this when I look at my family—my parents’ generation and my own generation. Yet we also know that behavior (and in-depth ideologies, as opposed to attitudes) is more problematic. For example, research shows that whites will still move out of neighborhoods once the percentage of black residents reaches a certain tipping point (Farley & Frey, 1994). Follow-up interviews with white survey respondents find that initial inclusive attitudes (e.g., acceptance of interracial marriage) are qualified or contradicted when explored in depth (Bonilla-Silva, 2001). Racial stereotypes have evolved, often including more complex combinations of race and class. We are also becoming more aware that even unconscious attitudes may have an impact; for example, the response to “black-sounding” names on a resume (Associated Press, 2003).
Seemingly changing attitudes may be problematic in another sense. Dominant-group members may “talk the talk” of equality by supporting equal opportunity in the abstract, but fail to “walk the walk” by supporting specific measures to attain racial equality. It is hard to change a system from which one is the beneficiary. Recently, we have seen the emergence of a new dominant-group racial ideology, “color-blind racism” (Bonilla-Silva, 2001), one that claims that race no longer “matters” and that racism no longer exists save in individual acts of discrimination. It is too easy for whites as a group to claim that slavery was 140 years ago and that “the past is the past” (Bonilla-Silva, 2001: 158). When we say “not today” or “it wasn’t me” (Myers, 2003: 538), we ignore the persistent racial inequality built into American institutions—what Joe Feagin (2000: 6) has termed “systemic racism.” I do not say this as an exercise in white-bashing, but instead to assert that a realistic accounting of the past and examination of the present leads to the inescapable conclusion that dominant-group members (white European Americans) continue to benefit from existing social arrangements.
Unfortunately, the “color-blind” worldview makes change more difficult. If dominant-group members are relatively unaware of their group advantages, then it is even more difficult to see systemic racism and the obstacles facing peoples of color. This then makes it easier to say that racial inequality is the result of circumstance, or the lack of effort or ability on the part of subordinate groups. It even becomes possible to make the claim, as increasing numbers of dominant-group members are doing, that racism against whites (e.g., “reverse discrimination”) is an emerging social problem and that dominant-group members are increasingly becoming the “victims” in race relations in the United States (Gallagher, 1995; Doane, 1996). To the extent that color-blind racism becomes a dominant racial ideology, I believe that it will become a significant obstacle to addressing racial inequality and pursuing racial justice.
What will be the nature of the dominant group in the future? We know that the United States is becoming more diverse. New immigration from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe is creating an even more complex ethnic and racial mosaic. US Census Bureau projections suggest that white European Americans will be a bare majority of the population by 2050. How will the dominant group respond to these changes? Will we see increased white assertion and defensiveness, as has happened in the past when the dominant group has felt itself to be threatened? Will we see, as some have predicted, a new expansion of the boundaries of the dominant group to include selected Latinos, Asian Americans, and multiracial persons, thereby once again increasing dominant-group numbers and power (Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Yancey, 2003)? Or will circumstances lead whites to become more willing to address systemic racism, share power, and work to make the American dream truly open to all? I do know that my son, my nieces, and my nephews will grow up and live their lives in a world that will be significantly different from the one that I experienced. What I do not know is what will be the nature of dominant-minority relations in this society.
references
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