Minority Groups In The United States

When talking about race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or any other socially meaningful group of people, the majority refers to the social group considered to have the most power in a particular place (and sometimes the most members). In the United States, white or Caucasian people are considered to be the racial majority group. White people have historically been the most powerful race in terms of representation in the media, business positions (like owning companies), or representation in politics.
Majority groups are often statistical majorities, meaning the group with the most people, but this is not always true. For example, when it comes to gender, men are considered to be the majority group in the United States because they have more social power than women. However, from a pure numbers perspective, there are a slightly higher number of women than men. So even though there are technically more women in the United States, women are still considered a minority group because they are a group with less social resources and power. Okay - if that's true, maybe the next step is that we should define what exactly we mean when we talk about a social 'minority.' …show more content…
This means that people need to be able to spot them or categorize them easily. Minorities could be based on skin color, like race, or by biological sex, like men versus women. Minorities can also be based on religion, which is often distinguished by the way someone dresses or from accessories they wear, such as a Star of David necklace, indicating Judaism. Or a minority could be based on choices, such as vegetarians who don't believe in eating meat and who take an active role in demonstrations and other activities to promote the wrongs of eating meat to