According to the pundits in the US the election was lost by the Republicans because the older white male is a vanishing breed. For sake of full disclosure, I am a white older male. I don't like stereotyping, so when the pundits start talking about the breakdown of the election in the US by breaking the voters down by race, age, sex, etc, it made me sad. I am saddened because they appear to take the numbers and then broadly generalize about people, and that is wrong.
Statistical analysis makes sense in the aggregate, not on the micro level. If a group moves in a certain direction for a reason, it does not mean that I as an individual within the group move in the same direction for the same reasons and for the pundits to classify the movement of the group and then attribute the reasons at an individual level is applying fuzzy logic, but it does keep them employed.
White males governed the United States exclusively for a very long time, and the integration of other ethnicities into their power structure has been slow at best. Despite the presence of many non-whites in their country throughout history, there is some truth that early Americans largely perceived the United States to be a country by and for white people.
Abraham Lincoln was among many presidents who, at least for most of his life, firmly believed this. Until about the time he became president, he believed the final solution to our racial problem was to create a Negro colony somewhere and move American Negroes there. (The bravery of African American troops in the Civil War helped convince him otherwise.)
White (Caucasian) Americans remain in the majority, but by the time but if you follow the demographic trends out a century or so, Hispanics will likely form a new plurality of Americans, and white Americans will be just another sizeable minority. Like Afrikaners, White men are likely to exert a political and financial power that will seem inconsistent with our size
I am glad that the old white men of my age are declining in power. I think of an old saying that goes something like this for Canadians, :"When you are young you are a New Democrat, when you are middle aged you become a Liberal, and when you are old you become a Conservative". For others the saying might be paraphrased as" When you are young you are a progressive, and when you are middle aged you become a moderae, and when you are older you become a conservative"
When I was young I was a progressive, and when I was middle aged I was a progressive and as I age I still am a progessive. Perhaps I have not grown up as much as some of my friends who have become more conservative in their views. I still believe that we can become a just and open society, that provides opportunities for all no matter what they are or what background they have.
I also believe that to do this individuals need help in understanding their own paradigms as well as help to overcome and to change those paradigms. My friends for the most part do not share this ideal and put more emphasis on the need for the individual to "pull themselves up and become successful", just like my friends did.
My friends however, forget that they had help along the way in many ways, one of which was to be born as an early Baby Boomer. As a result of being born at the head of a giant wave of humanity, we have been able to take advantage and move into jobs and leadership positions.
When I was younger I saw many injustices against people because of who they were, or what they believed, and did what I could to change societal views. We need to continue to fight against injustice and if that means that my generation of men is sidelined so much the better for humanity.
I also believe that some of us as older white male have contributed enormously to success and our efforts may predict future success. But this will only happen if we stop feeling sorry for our loss of power and start working to the common good and the pundits stop downplaying our impact.
Statistical analysis makes sense in the aggregate, not on the micro level. If a group moves in a certain direction for a reason, it does not mean that I as an individual within the group move in the same direction for the same reasons and for the pundits to classify the movement of the group and then attribute the reasons at an individual level is applying fuzzy logic, but it does keep them employed.
White males governed the United States exclusively for a very long time, and the integration of other ethnicities into their power structure has been slow at best. Despite the presence of many non-whites in their country throughout history, there is some truth that early Americans largely perceived the United States to be a country by and for white people.
Abraham Lincoln was among many presidents who, at least for most of his life, firmly believed this. Until about the time he became president, he believed the final solution to our racial problem was to create a Negro colony somewhere and move American Negroes there. (The bravery of African American troops in the Civil War helped convince him otherwise.)
White (Caucasian) Americans remain in the majority, but by the time but if you follow the demographic trends out a century or so, Hispanics will likely form a new plurality of Americans, and white Americans will be just another sizeable minority. Like Afrikaners, White men are likely to exert a political and financial power that will seem inconsistent with our size
I am glad that the old white men of my age are declining in power. I think of an old saying that goes something like this for Canadians, :"When you are young you are a New Democrat, when you are middle aged you become a Liberal, and when you are old you become a Conservative". For others the saying might be paraphrased as" When you are young you are a progressive, and when you are middle aged you become a moderae, and when you are older you become a conservative"
When I was young I was a progressive, and when I was middle aged I was a progressive and as I age I still am a progessive. Perhaps I have not grown up as much as some of my friends who have become more conservative in their views. I still believe that we can become a just and open society, that provides opportunities for all no matter what they are or what background they have.
I also believe that to do this individuals need help in understanding their own paradigms as well as help to overcome and to change those paradigms. My friends for the most part do not share this ideal and put more emphasis on the need for the individual to "pull themselves up and become successful", just like my friends did.
My friends however, forget that they had help along the way in many ways, one of which was to be born as an early Baby Boomer. As a result of being born at the head of a giant wave of humanity, we have been able to take advantage and move into jobs and leadership positions.
When I was younger I saw many injustices against people because of who they were, or what they believed, and did what I could to change societal views. We need to continue to fight against injustice and if that means that my generation of men is sidelined so much the better for humanity.
I also believe that some of us as older white male have contributed enormously to success and our efforts may predict future success. But this will only happen if we stop feeling sorry for our loss of power and start working to the common good and the pundits stop downplaying our impact.
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