How languages shape the way we think about racial issues

The other day we had a discussion about how the language used in Census forms, and more broadly, classifying people according to races create bigger problems. An article called "Time to Change the Language Paradigm: A Tool for Promoting Social Progress" by Skywalker Payne extensively talks about this issue - how languages shape the way we think about racial issues, and how we come to accept a certain model of social structure because of the language we use.

Payne starts off mentioning "the oxymoronic expression minority-majority." She argues that when people say "I am a minority," they are actually admitting that they are less than what they define as "the majority." The first definition of minority in most dictionaries qualifies the word as a term that describes a group smaller in the number of its members. However, over years the word minority assumed a more different meaning than that. Today, when we define a group of people as minority, we do not really take into account the number of members of that group compared to those of other groups. The word minority defines a group that is inferior to a majority, and that remains lesser in significance, importance or seriousness. And this makes minority a pejorative term instead of a quantitative one.

A compelling example that Payne presents stems from this question: Would we ever call a group of white people minority? When, for example, a few white students are getting education in a university with a black population much greater in number, would anyone consider the group of white people minority? Considering how we use the term today, it is highly unlikely. Even though in that case the white people are much lesser in number, not many people would define them as minority. Similarly, although black people are more in number, not many people would call them majority.

So, there is definitely a major shift in what the words minority and majority imply. The definition shifted from quantitative to qualitative. If these words do not refer to the number anymore, then what do they actually mean in our language? I agree with Payne that now minority is a pejorative term and puts the defined group to a lesser level than "the majority." These two words are difficult to deal with in the sense that there are many implications in them: In most dictionaries, major is defined as important and significant, whereas minor is defined as lesser in importance, seriousness or significance. It is quite difficult to separate the adjectives, major or minor, from the nouns, majority or minority. When the adjectives are defined like this, it is, I believe, difficult for us to think of these nouns as mere descriptions of numbers. They definitely imply the meaning of the adjectives - that is, majority is more important and significant than a minority.

I wonder if we are aware of this shift in the definition of minority and majority. As a white person who is a member of the so-called "majority," I find these words degrading and not representative of the individuals. I believe that the language we use today is putting people into little packages for the sake of conciseness. We forgo the intricacies and uniqueness of each individual and put them in groups. And when the way we refer to a particular group changes, as in the case with minority and majority, we actually change a whole lot - we change the way how we see those individuals. In our language, they are not less in number anymore, but rather they are less in significance and importance.

I do not think that we are aware of this change. We define a group of people as minority, but we don't really know what we mean by that. Do we really mean that this group of people is less in number, or less in importance? Language is an inextricable part of our daily lives, and we often tend to ignore the shifts in our language, and what we really mean by certain words.

Link to article: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Time-to-Change-the-Languag-by-Skywalker-Payne-100507-522.html