A London-based research outfit called YouGov matches perceptions to actual stats.  For example, panels of volunteers surveyed in the United States think that Blacks are 41% of the U.S population when the Census says they are only 12%.  The reason for the misperception has much to do with media exposure.

African Americans are everywhere on TV these days: in news, movies, commercials, and game shows.   Whether by talent, quotas, or voting blocs, they have risen to the heights in politics, law enforcement, celebrity, sports, and corporations.  All the while, they are given full media coverage to complain about being oppressed and victims of a racist society.  With all this exposure, is it any wonder that the public thinks they are more than 12% of our population?

The same can be said of other minority groups who get kid glove treatment from the media and corporate America.  YouGov panels believe Muslims are 27% of the population when they are only 1%.  Jews seem to be 30% of America when they are only 2%.  LGBTQA folks seem to be 30% of the population when they are only 3%.  Transgender people seem to be 21% of the country while they are only 1%.

I can only imagine what percentage of criminals the average American thinks Italian Americans are, based on relentless fictional movies and sensationalized perp walks of octogenarian “mafiosi”.  We are less than 5% of the population but our negative media image (mafia) is probably equal to our positive one (mainly food related).  Past surveys bear this out.  (A Zogby Poll in 2001 of teens and adults found that 78% of the teens associated Italian Americans with either criminal activities or blue-collar work; 74% of adults believed that most Italian Americans have some connection to organized crime.)

This information would be of passing interest if it didn’t seem to explain the current cultural upheaval.  Essentially, tiny minorities fueled by hi-octane political, media, and corporate support are punching above their weight.  Now empowered, they demand such things as putting minority astronauts on the moon (Biden’s budget has $7.5 billion allocated for that goal), and trans-women competing in female sports. Moreover, these outsized half-pints have an enemies list, among them are Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL). 

The minority enabler NYTimes did a frontpage expose` last week on Sen. Joe Manchin (orig: Mancini) as the enemy of the New Green Deal.  According to the article, he is heavily invested into fossil fuels, one reason why he destroyed President Biden’s Build Back Better boondoggle bill.  Besides, Manchin believes Biden’s open border policies are “frightening,” and the whole leftist-utopian agenda too radical.  Manchin must go, and the NYTimes is supplying the tar & feathers.  Hi-octane pipsqueaks are subverting moderate Democrats.

Next on the hit list is Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) an odds-on Republican contender for the 2024 Presidential race.  He defied Covid czar Dr. Anthony Fauci by keeping Florida businesses and schools open through most of the pandemic and rejecting mandates.  He shut down President Biden’s clandestine operation of shipping illegal aliens to his state.  He has gone on the offense against the tiny LGBTQA community and its pandering Disney Corporation in defense of parental rights in school.  The “controversy” that has sparked this confrontation: Florida now restricts the teaching of sexual and gender issues in grades K-3 (5 to 8 year old children), certainly a rational policy.  Disney apparently wants to die on this hill, going so far as to eliminate the phrases “boys & girls” and “ladies & gentlemen” in addressing patrons of its parks.  They are to be greeted as “Dreamers.”  Hi-octane insanity!

But public enemy #1 for hi-octane minorities is Christopher Rufo, the man who has uncovered the machinations of Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQA minorities in subverting American education.  Rufo has been invaluable in obtaining videos and documents from whistleblowers proving that the far-left has an agenda to radically overhaul our education system for racial and sexual motives.  It was Rufo who revealed the Critical Race Theory agenda being foisted on elementary and high schools.  A recent Rufo revelation is a video of Disney employees on a zoom call sharing their methodology in embedding transgender and gay messages into Disney cartoons. 

Will it take Rufo and DeSantis, to drain the octane out of radical minorities? -JLM