The figures from the 2010 Census that are freaking the Know Nothings out is news that the gabacho population shrank in size in Orange County, while wabs increased (as always) and Asians increased even more as a percentage. But the only figure that truly interested me was the number of people identifying as African-Americans, historically the largest minority in American cities but something of a numerical cipher here due to a history of segregation and the Klan.
The 2000 Census showed that 58,823 people identified themselves at least partly as African-American; that number constituted an abysmal 2 percent of the total population of Orange County. And the 2010 Census figures are hardly better.
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Although the overall population did increase by nearly 10,000 for a total of 67,708, OC's African-American community still stands at a miniscule 2.2 percent of our total of more than 3 million. And given our recent brushes with African-American issues–a dumb-ass surf shop offering a discount on all black items in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and UC Irvine offering a chicken-and-waffles special that same day–I doubt itll ever get much bigger than that. Sad.
