© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Census Race Categories Are Struggling to Keep Up With Virginia's Population

In the next 20 years, white people in Virginia are expected to become a minority. But, the story of race is a bit more complicated than that.

By 2040, the number of people in Virginia who check the box for “white alone” on the U.S. Census is expected to become a minority — a turning point for the history of race in the Commonwealth. But that’s only part of the story.

“75% of the population is still expected to be checking the white box. A lot of them will just be checking other boxes," explains Hamilton Lombard at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. He says racial categories might be losing their meaning. 

“There’s a lot of people interested in keeping racial categories meaning something for a lot of different reasons, so people may resist that to a certain extent," says Lombard. "But I think the social forces you have in the U.S. are definitely putting a lot of pressure on the racial categories we have, and they may not last a generation.”

Frank Shafroth at George Mason University says a world without racial categories might be a good thing. 

“It might be we will become a more welcoming set of communities in Virginia and across the country where we don’t make decisions that are biased because of a perception of race,” Shafroth says.

One interesting point about the projection for 2040. The number of people who check the white box — either white alone or white in combination with another race — is expected to be about 75%. That’s essentially the same percentage of people who considered themselves white back when the first Census was conducted back in 1790.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Michael Pope is an author and journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria.