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minority
Also written: minorities, racial minority, ethnic minority
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At a glance
Source-by-source
“Minority: According to Race Forward, 'Defining people of color as ‘minorities’ is not recommended because of changing demographics and the ways in which it reinforces ideas of inferiority and marginalization of a group of people.' In some areas, it is also simply becoming inaccurate as population demographics shift. When considering a term to use other than 'minority,' consider which specific communities you actually mean. BIPOC communities? Working class communities? Be more specific and you can easily avoid this term.”
Sierra Club's avoidance recommendation stacks three reasons: demographic inaccuracy (in many places non-white populations are not numerically minorities), the inferiority-marginalization connotation, and the same specificity preference that runs across the entire R&E section. Sources the recommendation to Race Forward.
“These terms have historically referred to non-White racial groups, indicating that they were numerically smaller than the dominant White majority. Defining people of color as 'minorities' is not recommended because of changing demographics and the ways in which it reinforces ideas of inferiority and marginalization of a group of people. Defining people by how they self-identify is often preferable and more respectful. The term 'minority' may be needed in specific cases (such as 'minority contracting' and 'minority-owned businesses') to reflect data that is collected using those categories. Avoid referring to an individual as a minority.”
DSG matches Sierra Club's reasoning exactly (both source the framing to Race Forward) and adds the practical exception: formal program names where 'minority' is the institutional category being referenced ('minority contracting,' 'minority-owned business') are acceptable because they refer to the actual data category. Otherwise avoid; never apply 'a minority' to an individual.
“Many of the terms in this glossary have evolved over time. For example, given the changing demographic trends in the United States, the word 'minority' no longer accurately reflects the four primary racial/ethnic groups. The terms 'emerging majority' and 'people of color' have become popular substitutes.”
RET names two specific replacement terms: 'emerging majority' (alternative framing emphasizing demographic trajectory) and 'people of color' (alternative framing centering identity rather than numerical relationship). 'Emerging majority' is less common in current usage but worth knowing as a peer alternative.
Context data
US demographic shift
The US Census Bureau projects that by approximately 2045, non-Hispanic White Americans will no longer constitute a majority of the US population. Several states (California, Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico) and many large metro areas are already 'majority-minority.'
The numerical premise that 'minority' originally encoded is no longer reliably true. In California, Texas, NM, Hawaii, and dozens of major metros, the demographic situation makes 'racial minority' factually inaccurate even setting aside the connotation concerns.
View source → Race Forward framing
Race Forward (formerly the Applied Research Center / Center for Social Inclusion) is the source both Sierra Club and DSG cite for the 'avoid minority' recommendation.
Race Forward's Reporting Guide is the upstream source for several R&E recommendations in the corpus. Sierra Club cites it heavily; DSG mirrors the framing. Worth knowing as the institutional source if Sierra Club or DSG are not sufficient citations.
View source → Audience notes
- Formal program names / data categories
- 'Minority contracting,' 'minority-owned businesses,' 'minority-serving institutions' (MSIs) — keep these proper-noun usages when referring to the actual program or data category. The exception that DSG carves out is for citing institutional categories, not for general descriptive use.
- Individual identification
- Never refer to an individual as 'a minority' (DSG explicit). 'A minority professor' flattens identity into numerical relationship; 'a Latina professor' or 'a Black professor' identifies the person. Same rule as BIPOC at the individual level.
- Majority-minority contexts
- Particularly in California, Texas, New Mexico, Hawaii, and many large metro areas, 'minority' is factually inaccurate. Default to 'people of color,' BIPOC, or specific identifiers; if 'majority-minority' is the framing the demographic data uses, name the construction explicitly rather than relying on 'minority' alone.
- 'Emerging majority'
- Worth knowing as a peer alternative term (per RET) that frames the same demographic trajectory positively rather than around inferiority. Less common in current usage than 'people of color' or BIPOC.
Synthesis
Minority is the rare term in the R&E corpus where three independent guides (Sierra Club, DSG, RET) converge on the same recommendation with substantially the same reasoning — and where the reasoning has both an empirical and a connotative leg, both of which trace back to Race Forward.
The empirical case: ‘minority’ encodes a numerical relationship (one group is smaller than the dominant group). That relationship is no longer reliably accurate. The US Census Bureau projects non-Hispanic White Americans will no longer be a majority by approximately 2045. California, Texas, New Mexico, Hawaii, and many large metros are already past that threshold. Using ‘minority’ as a default racial descriptor in these contexts is factually wrong before any connotative concern is engaged.
The connotative case: ‘minority’ carries the implication of subordination — being the minor party in a numerical or status sense. The same word in other contexts (a minor partner, a minor consideration) does the same connotative work. Substituting people of color, BIPOC, or specific identifiers shifts the descriptive frame from ‘numerically subordinate’ to either positive identity (POC, BIPOC, specific group) or trajectory (emerging majority).
The exception is narrow and consistent across guides: formal program names and data categories where ‘minority’ is the institutional label being referenced. ‘Minority contracting,’ ‘minority-owned businesses,’ ‘minority-serving institutions,’ ‘minority outreach grants’ — these are proper-noun usages of the federal/institutional category. Avoid the term in general descriptive use; keep it in formal citations.
The individual-level rule is firmer than the group-level rule: every guide treats applying ‘minority’ to a single person as the worst case. DSG is explicit (‘Avoid referring to an individual as a minority’); Sierra Club’s specificity rule produces the same outcome (‘Be more specific and you can easily avoid this term’); RET’s overall framing makes the same recommendation implicitly. The umbrella collapses when stretched over an individual.
There is no guide in the corpus that defends ‘minority’ as a preferred term outside the data-category exception. This is the closest thing in the R&E section to a stable cross-guide consensus.
Cross-references
- people of color (POC) — The most common replacement term in current usage.
- BIPOC — The post-2020 umbrella that further refines the people-of-color framing.
- emerging majority — RET’s named alternative; less common but worth knowing.
- majority-minority — A construction that uses ‘minority’ descriptively in formal demographic contexts. Acceptable when citing the data; avoid as casual shorthand.
History note
‘Minority’ as a racial descriptor became institutionalized in US federal vocabulary through the 1960s civil-rights era — the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (founded 1965) and various affirmative-action frameworks centered the term as a category for data collection and program eligibility. The term’s empirical accuracy started eroding through the 1990s as US demographic trajectories made non-white populations majority in several states. Race Forward’s reporting guidance (mid-2010s onward) is the most-cited contemporary source for the avoidance recommendation; the 2020 wave of style-guide updates incorporated Race Forward’s framing across Sierra Club, DSG, and most other major progressive guides. The institutional ‘minority’ usages (minority contracting, MSIs) survive intact in formal program names because the data infrastructure still uses the category.
Related terms