Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Describing Diversity

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Sep 15, 2016, at 2:02 PM, carol collier via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:

> In the U.S there are several aspects of a person that are considered 
> default.  Among these are White and Protestant.  According to the 2010 
> US Census 12% of the citizenry identify as Black, 72% as White.  That 
> means that about 3 out of every 4 people in the US are White, six times 
> as many as are Black.

2015 from the census:

White alone,  77.1%
Black or African American alone, 13.3%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 2015 1.2%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 0.9%
Asian alone, 5.6%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent, 0.2%
Two or More Races, 2.6%
Hispanic or Latino, 17.6%

Adding all those who identify as other than “white” is 41.4% nationally. (The 
total as greater than 100% is probably accounted for by those who identify as 
both/and.)

41.4% vs 13.3% Black or African American is interesting. All these are people 
who have been identified as of color. A sociologist from South America 
described my son who is Swedish and African American “a brown boy.” That was 
her category. It distinguished a and just as discriminated against in their own 
areas. Indians were just as excluded as African Americans in Oklahoma in the 
1950s. The Asians in the Western United States. Hispanics in many places today.

These groups have skin colors as varied as the differences within groups of 
people self-identified as “white” and as “black.”

A friend of a Jamaican family, born in England, raised in Canada, had a hard 
time adjusting to life in Washington DC. DC was more than 50% African American 
when she came to DC for graduate school. (It was 50% in 2010.) The reason was 
that her behavior and expectations were not those of “people who look like me.” 
The cultural difference were very great. She had a British accent and standards 
of dress and behavior that were very British even though she grew up in Canada.

When I came to DC, I didn’t understand why the African American population 
didn’t take over the city and run things. Congress is supposed to do this but 
they don’t. The city has languished for a long time because of this. She 
explained that the “black” population is actually several cultures and ethnic 
groups. Jamaican, African American, French African, etc. They are cultures that 
disdain each other. DC also has a long established wealthy and professional 
middle class. Many live on the Gold Coast on16th Street. Ethnicity and social 
class trumps skin color. 

The “whites” also divide themselves as Jewish, Catholic, Protestant/WASP, 
Episcopalian, American, British, French, etc. To the African American people 
these divisions in DC are probably no more visible than the divisions in the 
African diaspora.

“White” is considered the majority in Western Europe and the United States. But 
culture and ethnic identification has a greater influence on daily life. That 
is certainly not to disregard the experience of African American people as 
confronting racism daily, but to point out that other people also feel equally 
discriminated against in certain contexts. And not all African Americans feel 
discriminated against as a daily experience.

The Jews were a major target of the Holocaust because they were non-Aryan, but 
other populations were also disenfranchised and sent to concentration camps 
because they did not conform to the Aryan ideal. Non-Catholics, homosexuals, 
anti-Nazi, etc. Aryans were Catholic, “white,” blond hair, blue eyes. (While 
the Holocaust literature usually identifies both Protestants and Catholics 
Christians, they themselves often do not.) 

One of my favorite stories is from Maya Angelou on her time living in Africa. 
She was suddenly immersed in a world where people looked like her, not just in 
skin color but in features and stature. The same body type. She said it was 
startling to suddenly not being able to ascribe rudeness and hostility to 
prejudice against her because of her skin color or distinctly African features.

Sorry this is so long but I’ve done a lot of reading on this topic to 
understand my own history. All of it goes to say that there are many kinds of 
diversity and skin color is not the most important, at least in cohousing. Even 
if everyone is European or African American the cultural and ethnic differences 
will probably be greater than one would expect.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org