America’s first majority president

Barack Obama, America’s first minority president? No, in the new America, Obama is the first majority president.

What is the new America? Observe the foot traffic in any America airport, in the halls of Denver’s City and Country building, in any amusement park, concert hall or sports stadium — some place where people move out of their mostly segregated neighborhoods, where the whole country comes together. The majority may not be African American or Latino yet, but the Caucasian dominance is vanshing before our eyes.

Racially, America seems more non-white — black, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern and native American — than white. In fact, America is 66% white (counting the Middle Eastern American citizens). However you count, the percentage is shrinking fast.

If Obama embodies the non-white races, and not just African Americans, he symbolizes America’s first majority president.

As you walk up and down the aisles in the airport, listen to the languages. Flip the dial on your radio, don’t stop at your favorite news or music channels, and listen to the languages. It’s not all English, not by a long shot.

Decry the fall of English as America’s exclusive language, if you like, but this is the new America. Many of the people with whom you might argue about this are not native English speakers or not English speakers at all. Rather than countering or disputing your defense of English, many will simply not understand you. This, too, is the new America.

I doubt that English will ever lose its dominance in the way that the Caucasian race has, and the racial issue is qualitatively different from the language issue; but, bottom line, the new America is already bi-lingual, with huge pockets of citizens speaking Spanish or another language.

It is still a tremendous disadvantage in America not to be fluent in English, but this is changing.

Perplexed Jews speak of the Jewish children of Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents mastering English in one generation. That was then, this is now.

On one level — the racial — the changing character of America should make no difference to anyone; and, clearly, with Obama’s decisive electoral victory, it makes a lot less difference than it used to.

It certainly makes no difference in Judaism, for which race is not a category in Jewish history (witness, Ethiopian Jews) or law (witness, non-white converts). Whether majority white, majority black or majority whatever, America is and should remain as beloved by Jews as it has always been.

America’s first majority president will only hasten the process and the legitimacy of the racial diversification of American. This is long overdue.

On the language front, however, keep in mind that there is no bilingual education for English speakers. Those fluent in Spanish are expected to master English. Some do and some don’t, but virtually no native English speaking American citizens master Spanish or any other language. At best, native English speakers are expected to study another language for a few years in high school. There is no expectation that even a small minority of Caucasians will actually master Spanish or any other language.

A society divided by language and culture is a looming disaster for the new America, one that a president, by virtue of his race or culture alone, can do nothing to ameliorate.

The new America and the new president will need to articulate and implement policies to revivify English as the country’s predominant and official language, and to teach Spanish and preferably still another language to all of her citizens, whatever their native language, in order to keep this country cohesive and to sustain its place in the new global market.

Language is the stuff of commerce and trust. When America’s citizens speak the same language(s), they will earn each other’s trust. When America’s citizens understand the language(s) of the countries in which they increasingly do business, they will dramatically increase their chances of success.