White Demographobia: Media, Racial Statistics, and the Browning of America

• In Event: 064 - Regular Session. Race/Ethnicity: Marking Boundaries, Making Statistics

Abstract

Demographic change reemerged as a volatile public issue following the release of the results of the 2010 U.S. census, the most recent census to stoke growing racial anxieties and anticipations about the future. The media immediately seized upon census data as further confirmation of the changing “face” of the country. Despite rarely employing explicitly racist language or imagery, I argue that the mainstream media nonetheless contributes to white “demographobia,” that is, a racialized fear of demographic change. I support this argument by analyzing two methods by which the media contributes to white anxieties in the era of “colorblind” racism. The first, which I label “frames of gravity,” refers to textual and visual means of dramatizing change. The second method, which I term “racial juxtaposition,” describes the increasingly commonplace contrast between whites and nonwhites, most often Latinos. I contend that these methods engender a vision of demographic change as a zero sum game, composed of population winners and losers.

Author

• Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, Northwestern University