Image via WikipediaI was at an event last night, and one speaker said how America will have become a minority majority nation by 2050, as in the nonwhites will have become the majority by then. And this was not my first time hearing that. I actually might have read that for a course in college. But I feel the need to respond. Having experienced ethnic prejudice in Nepal, and racism in America, and having gone through the deep convulsions of a political revolution in a Third World country, the poorest outside of Africa - Nepal - and having thought through the group dynamics elements of tech startups, that minority majority nation talk to me feels like seeing 2050 through 2010 lenses.
I give to you sushi and yoga and hip hop and salsa. I give to you the Spanish language. These are so mainstream in the white parts of America already. But then I grew up learning English where I grew up. My point is America will not have become a minority majority nation in 2050. I hope much sooner than 2050, maybe as early as 2020 - and a lot of that might be to do with globally universal broadband - we will start to see all of culture as belonging to all of humanity. If I am a white guy, and I like sushi, I like sushi, what are you going to do about that?
The English language does not belong to any one culture. Sushi does not. Yoga does not. There will be a lot of mashing up going on down the line, all the way down to the genetic pool. Cross-racial, cross-cultural relationships and marriages are going to get more and more widespread. The number one reason I get excited at the prospect of gay marriages becoming mainstream and humdrum is all those gay couples likely will adopt kids from all over the world, and things will get colorful. Who is white? Who is not?
As I passionately follow the revolutions sweeping across the Arab world I get reminded it is not about liberating Egyptians, or Libyans. It is about the individual. It is about the individual everywhere, America or Iran.
When Mugabe terrorizes black people, he is not terrorizing black people. He is terrorizing the individual. We want a world where a black person can end up in the Oval Office in America and a white person can own a farm in Zimbabwe. People should be allowed to move across the world.
Yes, poverty can be eliminated. And fast. Yes, democracy will spread: it is one way traffic.
America is not on its way to becoming a minority majority nation. America is on its way to becoming a hugely multi-cultural nation. All culture belongs to all of humanity. We will respect the individual, no matter who they are, and we will happily share. We will share music, food, festivals. We will share languages and religions. And we will genetically mix. It is not like the grand wheels of evolution care one way or the other.
"It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."
– Stephen Hawking
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