
Most Children Younger Than Age 1 Are Minorities, Census Bureau Reports - setra
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb12-90.html
======
danieltillett
Might be time to come up with a new euphemism - hard to be a minority when you
are a member of the majority.

~~~
dalke
Minority in power != minority in population. Look at apartheid era South
Africa, for example, for a case where the white minority population had the
large majority of power.

I agree that the ambiguity is confusing.

FWIW, it's also part of the traditional colonial structure. From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism)
:

> Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported)
> majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions
> affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the
> colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant
> metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population,
> the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained
> mandate to rule.[6]

While the British were the minority of the population in India, they had the
majority of power during colonial rule.

To make it more confusing, depending on which definition of 'minority' you
use, women are also a minority. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_group#Gender_and_sexu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_group#Gender_and_sexuality_minorities)
.

~~~
danieltillett
It really is abusing the term minority to label women as a minority.

In every society a small minority has the majority of the power. Apartheid
might be history, but the vast majority of people in South Africa have no
power.

~~~
dalke
Now you're just being argumentative by deciding to use your personal ideas of
what majority/minority means, then complaining when others use a different
definition.

Certainly the members of the Althing are a minority of the people of Iceland,
and have the majority of the legislative power. But if that's your definition
then it's a pretty useless one.

~~~
danieltillett
I am not the one trying to argue that minority means anything other than
minority. It really is an abuse of the English language to define that a group
is a minority even though they are a majority and that a former majority is
still a majority because some minority of people have power.

The whole point of my original post is that we need a new euphemism. Let's
come up with something that is at least numerically consistent.

~~~
dalke
You are trying to define it so it only applies to population size.

That's not what it means. It's a shorthand for "social minority", as the top
of the Wikipedia page I pointed out clearly says.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_group)

> Minority group is a term referring to a category of people differentiated
> from the social majority, i.e., those who hold the majority of positions of
> social power in a society, and may be defined by law. Rather than a
> relational "social group", as the term would indicate, "minority group"
> refers to the above-described. The differentiation can be based on one or
> more observable human characteristics, including: ethnicity, race, religion,
> caste, gender, wealth, health or sexual orientation. Usage of the term is
> applied to various situations and civilizations within history, despite its
> popular mis-association with a numerical, statistical minority.

~~~
danieltillett
The problem with these sort of definitions of the terms minority and majority
is they lose all meaning. It allows anyone to arbitrarily categorise any
groups they want as a minority or majority depending how they split or lump
everyone together.

I guess I am a little old fashion in wanting to use words to communicate which
gets impossible if anyone can use any word to mean anything they want.

~~~
dalke
I stand by my statement that you are only "being argumentative by deciding to
use your personal ideas of what majority/minority means, then complaining when
others use a different definition."

If your proposal is what I think it is then, if not technically wrong, it is
useless to the point where it can be discarded as a way to understand social
issues. But as you haven't really given an idea of what your definition is,
it's hard for me to really evaluate it. (How is it meaningful to say that the
Althing is run by a minority?)

The decades of literature on the topic has a largely coherent use of what
"social minority" means, with much discussion on what it means, including
highlighting the distinction between numerical and social minority. For
example, quoting from the UN at
[http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/MinorityRights_e...](http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/MinorityRights_en.pdf)
:

> In most instances a minority group will be a numerical minority, but in
> others a numerical majority may also find itself in a minority-like or non-
> dominant position, such as Blacks under the apartheid regime in South
> Africa.

You are also correct that is it partially subjective. Again, quoting from that
document:

>It is often stressed that the existence of a minority is a question of fact
and that any definition must include both objective factors (such as the
existence of a shared ethnicity, language or religion) and subjective factors
(including that individuals must identify themselves as members of a
minority).

and

> The question often arises as to whether, for example, persons with
> disabilities, persons belonging to certain political groups or persons with
> a particular sexual orientation or identity (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
> transgender or intersexual persons) constitute minorities. While the United
> Nations Minorities Declaration is devoted to national, ethnic, religious and
> linguistic minorities, it is also important to combat multiple
> discrimination and to address situations where a person belonging to a
> national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minority is also discriminated
> against on other grounds such as gender, disability or sexual orientation.

and

> Similarly to minorities, there is no universally accepted international
> definition of indigenous peoples.

But that is true of almost every social grouping. What is "Christian"?

That said, _for the purposes of this census report_ , "minority" means
"minorities as defined by the US government", and the definition is clear.

Instead, you're pointing to ambiguities on the edges and interpreting it as a
problem with the core, when by all that I can tell, it's mostly a lack of
willingness on your part to understand the topic.

~~~
danieltillett
I am not complaining that others use the terms minority and majority
differently to me, I am complaining that the terms have lost all meaning
because they have been used so inconsistently. I would like us to use new
terms with consistent meanings so we can talk constructively about serious
issues.

Yes I understand what the concept minority means in regards the US census even
if the groupings are now mostly historical rather than informative. This
breakdown in meaning is reflected in the growing percentage of the population
who do not feel they belong uniquely to one of the census categories.

~~~
dalke
There is no more ambiguity over the term "minority group" than there is over
the term "Christian". Has the term "Christianity" lost all its meaning? Shall
we stop talking about it until there's a well-defined term?

The current interpretations of "minority" and "minority group" has been the
primary definition for longer than you've likely been alive.

You might as well complain about "calculus" because not only is it not dealing
with pebbles, but it's really a short-hand for "calculus of infinitesimals",
and not meant to include the calculus of variations or lambda calculus.

