Race/Related: Childhood Memories of Racism and the Things Left Unsaid

Plus: Why the Announcement of a Looming White Minority Makes Demographers Nervous View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Saturday, November 24, 2018 [More Race/Related »]( [Lauretta Charlton] Lauretta Charlton Good morning, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I flew from New York to Colorado, where I celebrated the holiday with my fiancé’s family in a little mountain town outside of Denver. There were 14 of us. I was the only black person. Everyone got along fine. I did miss my mom’s[cooking](. One thing I’m very thankful for this year is all of your letters. I have been in awe of how many of you have taken the time to write in and be candid about your experiences. Last week, we asked for childhood memories of encountering racist beliefs. It was fascinating to learn what memories have stayed with you. Dorothy Snyder described riding in the back seat of the car when her mother got lost driving in New Jersey. When they ended up in a mostly black neighborhood, her mother screamed for Ms. Snyder and her sister to duck and hide: “Get down! Get down!” Baker C. Blanding of Georgia remembered asking a white classmate in kindergarten, in 1992, if he could borrow a crayon and being rebuffed because he was black. Candace Hill wrote about a hot summer day in Dothan, Miss., watching white children splash around in a segregated swimming pool in which she and her siblings were not allowed. These were just some of your earliest recollections of racism, and, I would guess, certainly not your last. What I found most intriguing about your letters was the number of tales that described encountering racist beliefs at home. The black, Jewish and Latino friends who could not be invited over for dinner. The aunt who was disowned for her interracial marriage. The angry grandparent who hurled racial epithets across a room. At home we are often taught to avoid controversial subjects, and I find this disconnect — encountering racism at home while also being discouraged from discussing it openly — interesting. I thought about it as we sat at the table for Thanksgiving enjoying our turkey and sharing our pleasantries. I wondered what it would take to get more people to speak freely and frequently about racism at home among family and what good that would do. The things that are left unsaid may not always be the most memorable, but in their own way they stay with us too. Have a great weekend, Lauretta Editor, Race/Related [Why the Announcement of a Looming White Minority Makes Demographers Nervous]( [“People went crazy,” said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California, of the 2008 projection that non-Hispanic whites would drop below half the population by 2042.]( “People went crazy,” said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California, of the 2008 projection that non-Hispanic whites would drop below half the population by 2042. Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times The graphic was splashy by the Census Bureau’s standards and it [showed]( an unmistakable moment in America’s future: the year 2044, when white Americans were projected to fall below half the population and lose their majority status. The presentation of the data disturbed Kenneth Prewitt, a former Census Bureau director, who saw it while looking through a government report. The graphic made demographic change look like a zero-sum game that white Americans were losing, he thought, and could provoke a political backlash. So after the report’s release three years ago, he organized a meeting with Katherine Wallman, at the time the chief statistician for the United States. “I said ‘I’m really worried about this,’” said Dr. Prewitt, now a professor of public affairs at Columbia University. He added, “Statistics are powerful. They are a description of who we are as a country. If you say majority-minority, that becomes a huge fact in the national discourse.” In a nation preoccupied by race, the moment when white Americans will make up less than half the country’s population has become an object of fascination. For white nationalists, it signifies a kind of doomsday clock counting down to the end of racial and cultural dominance. For progressives who seek an end to Republican power, the year points to inevitable political triumph, when they imagine voters of color will rise up and hand victories to the Democratic Party. But many academics have grown increasingly uneasy with the public fixation. They point to recent research demonstrating the data’s power to shape perceptions. Some are questioning the assumptions the Census Bureau is making about race, and whether projecting the American population even makes sense at a time of rapid demographic change when the categories themselves seem to be shifting. [Read the full story [here]( — Sabrina Tavernise ADVERTISEMENT Editor’s Picks We publish many articles that touch on race. Here are a few you shouldn’t miss. [Sigrid Johnson Was Black. A DNA Test Said She Wasn’t.]( By RUTH PADAWER The surge in popularity of services like 23andMe and Ancestry means that more and more people are unearthing long-buried connections and surprises in their ancestry. [Illuminating Black Joy, Black Love and Resistance in Harlem]( By FAYEMI SHAKUR Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes celebrated the art of living through difficult times in “The Sweet Flypaper of Life.” [Olivia Hooker, 103, Dies; Witness to an Ugly Moment in History]( By NEIL GENZLINGER She was a child in Tulsa, Okla., during an attack on a black section of the city in 1921. She later broke a racial barrier for the Coast Guard. [White Kansas Official’s ‘Master Race’ Comment Draws Calls for His Resignation]( By JULIA JACOBS The Kansas official was addressing a black consultant when he used the phrase, prompting the governor to call for his resignation days later. [Texas Students Will Now Learn That Slavery Was ‘Central’ to the Civil War]( By JACEY FORTIN The new educational standards also retained mentions of Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller, after there was talk of removing them. Critics say the changes don’t go far enough. [Girl, 13, Who Wrote Essay on Gun Violence Is Killed by Stray Bullet]( By CHRISTINA CARON “Little children are victims of senseless gun violence,” Sandra Parks wrote in an essay about her hometown, Milwaukee. Two years later, she was dead. Invite your friends. Conversations about race are hard, but you can help! Invite someone to subscribe to the [Race/Related]( newsletter. Or email your thoughts and suggestions to racerelated@nytimes.com. Want more Race/Related? Follow us on Instagram, where we continue the conversation about race through stunning visuals. [Instagram]( [INSTAGRAM]( We’ve got more newsletters! You might like Gender Letter.  Sign up for a weekly take on news, trends, culture and whatever else is on the mind of our gender writer, Maya Salam. 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