Want to guess some population percentages?

15
45
15
35
20
7
15
25
45

This is hard. I say about 40% for Native Americans.

18%
40%
20%
10%
35%
10%
48%
30%
47%

Jewish 9
Black 13
Hispanic 33
Muslim 8
Asian 12
Transgender 1
Native American 14
Household income over $500k 100 ;-o
High School Diploma 0 ;p

I’m outside the US and these are my guesses:

Jewish 5%
Black 30%
Hispanic 25%
Muslim 5%
Asian 3%
Transgender 0.1%
Native American 3%
Household income over $500k 0.5%
High School Diploma 85%

Ill answer for the whole US not just my area. No cheating….
Jewish 3%
Black 15%
Hispanic 20%
Muslim 2%
Asian 15%
Transgender 0.5%
Native American 5%
Household income over $500k 10%
High School Diploma 96% (Assuming the person is over 20)

Haven’t looked at the previous answers before answering.

Black- 13–15%
Hispanic – 20%
Asian – 2%
HH income over 500k – 4%
HS diploma – 85%
Muslim – 4%
Transgender – .5% (half a percent)
Native – no clue since many people have some percentages of Nativve American in them and I’m not sure how they might answer on a census.

For myself, my father is 100% Hispanic and sometimes I call myself white, and sometimes I call myself Hispanic, so…..

Oh, I forgot Jewish. I’d say Jewish is 20%.

Just looked at the previous answers. My thinking was the same as @LuckyGuy‘s when I answered about HS diploma. I am guessing that there’s a larger percentage of people without a HS diploma that are old, when it was not so critical to graduate HS in order to get a decent job. Now, I’d say even the percentage of the US population that has a Bachelor’s Degree would be about 60% and among people under 40, 85%. Just a guess.

Jewish 3%
Black 12%
Hispanic 15%
Muslim 3%
Asian 10%
Transgender 0.6%
Native American 6%
Household income over $500k 1.5%
High School Diploma 87%

GA’s for everyone.

Below are the percentages that were quoted on the show. Some of these I knew already because I look them up enough and hear them enough, that I am fairly aware, although some were a surprise to me.

Also, note, there is rounding, for instance I know Jews in America is more like 2.5%. I know because I am Jewish and for some reason Jews know the number. Not surprisingly, people think Jews are a huge number and everywhere.

I read somewhere several years ago that people who live outside of the US think the US has a very high percentage of Black people, like close to 50%, I hadn’t realized that until I read that.

Another note: I am not sure if Asian is for all Asians, as in the entire continent of Asia, or just East and South Asia? West Asia might be under Middle East? Still the percentage would only be different by a small amount.

The Native American number is much lower than I imagined, I thought it would be closer to 5%.

I’m interested in what surprises you most when you see the statistics.

The actual number is the first percentage in bold writing, and the number in parenthesis is what the people polled guessed. They didn’t say how many people were polled or the demographic of the people polled.

Jewish actual 2% (people polled guessed 30%)
Black 12% (41%) I have seen the actual number as high as 15% I am not sure the discrepancy.
Hispanic 17% (39%)
Muslim 1% (27%)
Asian 6% (29%)
Transgender 0.6% (I just noticed I did not write the polling number down for this I can go back and watch the show if anyone is interested)
Native American 1% (27%)
Household income over $500k 1% (26%)
High School Diploma 89% (65%)

For me, the numbers tell me how much people are influenced by their own surroundings or media and how distorted our perceptions can be. I’m not so focused on our perceptions of how large minority groups are, I mean this demonstrates that distorted perceptions can happen with any topic. If you hear something and see something enough it becomes larger and more real and more significant, even when it might be a small thing.

I knew the number for black pretty closely. In my opinion, since most commercials on TV now feature black people, if one didn’t know the number, they might have a misconception about the percentage.

@jca2 Yes, I would agree that currently Blacks are overrepresented in some parts of media. Plus, living near the inner city or living in Southern states I think people in those locations feel the percentage is much higher than it is. People outside the US, I am not sure why they have the perception they do. I was thinking about South Africa, and maybe Europeans are more in tune with the apartheid situation that was there, and SA is something like 70% Black, I don’t know the exact number.

Your guess of 20% for Jews, that probably is the case where you live, if not higher. Years ago I told my MIL the US is 2% Jewish and she thought I was stupid and crazy. Her housing community in Delray Beach was probably over 80% Jewish.

I think it’s adorable that people think that Jews make up 1/5 of the US population

Jewish – 1.5
Black – 30
Hispanic – 35
Muslim – 15
Asian – 30
Transgender – 0.8
Native American – 1
Household income over $500k – 25
High School Diploma – 58

@JLeslie: Also, Jewish people tend to be active in the community and so for others active in the community (like me), that’s where the misperceptions lies, plus like you said I live in an area where there are a lot of Jewish people. I am willing to be that rural US midwest, there are not many, or at least not as many as here in the NY metro area (which for those who don’t know what area that refers to, it’s southern NY/northern NJ/CT).

@jca2 I live in Western NY. When I leave my zip code, the number of Jews drops to zero. :-)

It is interesting to see how almost every commercial there is a Black, an Asian and maybe a White – with the ever so subtle hint of gayness. It is no wonder people outside of the US think the minority numbers are much greater.

I agree about the commercials, @LuckyGuy. It’s like an overcompensation from the way it used to be.

I wonder if other groups know their percentages? As I said most Jewish people know how many Jews are in the country, and that’s further demonstrated by our list of Jewish jellies here. Do Latin Americans know how many Latin Americans in the US? Black People know the percentage of Blacks?

@Caravanfan I probably wouldn’t use such a sweet word, but I do pull out the example of how many Jews there are to prove to people they aren’t always correct about what they think they know.

I just googled the NYC Jewish population, and it’s 9%, and the NYS Jewish population is 9%, too.

@jca2 Wow. I would have thought NYC would be higher.

Guessing for my location:

Jewish 5%
Black 15%
Hispanic 15%
Muslim 5%
Asian 3%
Transgender 0.2%
Native American 0.5%
Household income over $500k 0.8%
High School Diploma 70%

What the googled numbers are:
Jewish 0.3%
Black 17%
Hispanic 5.7%
Muslim 1%
Asian 1.75%
Transgender ??
Native American 0.5%
Household income over $500k ??
High School Diploma 89%

Without looking at the answer, I’d guess:

Jewish 3%
Black 49%
Hispanic 40%
Muslim 0.3%
Asian 43%
Transgender 30%
Native American 10%
Household income over $500k 40%
High School Diploma 96%

@Mimishu1995 Interesting. You can find the actual percentages above in my answer that has a lot of bold font.

Your answer for Asian and Black stand out the most to me.

@JLeslie I know you posted the answer. That’s why I actively tried not to look at the answer before I crafted my response. What do you find interesting about my answer?

@mimishu1995 I appreciate that you took a stab at guessing without cheating.

Just interesting how people outside the country picture the population here. People in the US guess the numbers incorrectly too, so it’s not surprising, just interesting.

You said 43% Asian and 49% Black, that would leave not too many percentage points for people of white European descent. Is that how you picture the US? Only 10% white like Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Or, maybe you didn’t think through how the numbers were adding up.

@JLeslie I admit that I didn’t think through the number. But I was also thinking of mixed race too. I think the majority of the US population are white, but because the US is so interracial that people of different races can get together. Someone can be both white and Asian.

If I had to edit my answer for pure race only, it would be something like 70% white. The 30% would be Black and Asian of approximately equal percentage.

That’s a good point about multi-race, I’m not sure how that was counted.

Plus, Middle Eastern people are most often counted as white not Asian. My husband doesn’t check Asian on the census or any other form even though his father’s side came from Israel and before that other parts of West Asia.

Now, in America they are using the term brown in the media for these people, which I think is freaking odd. Brown is not an option on any form anywhere in the US. It’s all self reporting. The US census does try to clarify to make the stats easier to understand. Here is the US Census form. On page 2 on the right side you can see how the government tries to help people classify themselves. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/technical-documentation/questionnaires-and-instructions/questionnaires/2020-informational-questionnaire-english_DI-Q1.pdf

I googled and this website says mixed race is 6,9% in the US https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/

Also, while googling multi-racial I found this https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html which says 9.7million are Native American or Alaskan Native. That’s more than the 1% I wrote above. That’s more like 3%.

@JLeslie Middle Eastern people are most often counted as white not Asian.

This is one of the parts about how Americans categorize race that I fail to understand. Asia is a large continent, with many countries and cultures. If you are to account for Asian, you have to take in the various cultures too. It seems to me that what Americans categorize as “Asian” is just East Asia, not the entire Asian continent. This is like me saying “America” is just the people in the US, not Canada or other South American countries.

You have skin color (white, black), and then suddenly you have countries (Hispanic), and then you have continent (Asian). And within the race categories you have white as literal white, Europe-originated people and people from the Middle East. There is no clear guideline. I just don’t understand.

Good points, @Mimishu1995.

@Mimishu1995 I was surprised that you wrote 30% for transgender.

I checked my numbers against the answers before posting them, and did so badly that I decided not to post them!

I agree with you though, that there can be a lot of overlap.

Jewish 4%
Black 12%
Hispanic 15%
Muslim 4%
Asian 9%
Transgender 2%
Native American <1%
Household income over $500k 8%
High school diploma 74%

Hmmm…I didn’t think of adding it up to 100. Hold up. Let me think about that and rearrange a bit.

Ethnicity:
Black 12%
Hispanic 15%
Asian 9%
Native American 1%
White 63%

Actually that’s not too far off what I’d guess for white.

Whoa…there’s only 1% Muslim? How is that possible? Isn’t that one of the largest religions in the world? I thought I would be grossly under guessing.

It doesn’t need to add up to 100%, does it? Due to overlap.

It won’t add up to 100%.

People can be Hispanic and Black and Jewish all at once.

@JLeslie I think US Census has a separate category for two or more races.

@smudges It doesn’t have to. But JLeslie’s comment made me realize I wasn’t thinking of the whole.

@smudges well guess I saw so many transgenders on the media that I thought the number was higher :P

@raum maybe it’s only large around the regions with people practicing it (the Middle East)? There is hardly any Muslim in Vietnam. My entire country is built on Buddhism, but I don’t think it can compete with other places like the US.

The Census doesn’t have religion at all.

@Mimishu1995 I thought Vietnam was mostly Buddhist. But also a good chunk are Catholics?

@JLeslie There’s also Pew Research

@JLeslie I just checked my answers and I’m not too far off. But I have to confess that’s probably because there was a semi-recent discussion in a local Facebook group about which cities in the Bay Area were diverse. So I had semi-recently looked up national averages to compare.

@raum I thought there was 2% Muslim. I’m not sure if they count non-observant Muslims. Still, the number is definitely very small. There are many millions of Muslims in the world, but not many in the US.

On the US census you can check multiple boxes for race. People can self identify however they want.

@Mimishu1995 The whole Asian, race, continent, ethnicity thing is very confusing. The US government is less confused than the average American in my opinion. Asian is used in many ways. Using it for race it is replacing the word Oriental, because now Oriental is considered offensive. Using Asian geographically is a separate thing.

Race in America historically had a lot to do with features, like eye shape or nose shape, and in addition to that was the color of skin.

@raum yeah there are some Christians here. But they don’t really make up the majority. And Christianity isn’t ingrained in the culture, so most people who aren’t Christians have a really basic surface knowledge of Christianity like it’s a religion that worship Jesus. It doesn’t help that most Christians are Christians because it’s a generational thing. Christianity in Vietnam is like some kind of closed group where you have to be in it to understand it.

And then we have people who use religion to push their personal political agenda too, but that’s another story.

I have never seen any Muslim here, either in real life or in the media. The only instance where I saw a Muslim in Vietnam was a story from a teen magazine about a daughter of an Arab immigrant. But that story could be made up entirely.

@JLeslie Race in America historically had a lot to do with features, like eye shape or nose shape, and in addition to that was the color of skin.

Yeah I know. And I can understand that. It’s just that the way it is categorized now is just so confusing, at least for people outside of the US. You have names for skin color alongside with names for geographical locations. Does the US see Jew and Muslim as races too?

And also what is so offensive about Oriental? We use oriental here all the time.

@Mimishu1995

“And Christianity isn’t ingrained in the culture,”
“I have never seen any Muslim here, either in real life or in the media.”

Not having the influence of any Abrahamic religions is a GOOD thing. :)

@Mimishu1995 I guess Catholicism could technically fall under Christianity. But I’ve never met a Christian from Vietnam. But know of many Catholics from Vietnam.

@raum: A Catholic is a Christian.

@jca2 Yes, I know. That’s what I meant by Catholicism would fall under Christianity. :)

I should clarify that they specifically-identified as Catholic.

@Mimishu1995 Americans put race and nationality altogether, it’s true, it bothers me too. You are probably more aware of it than the average American, which goes to your credit.

It’s because of group demographics and psychographics, and general stereotypes and immigration patterns.

Religions are not considered a race, but that doesn’t prevent some people from using it that way. People who are white Supremacists would see Jewish and Muslim as race most likely. Also, ignorant people who mean no harm may only think Arabs are Muslim, so they might use Muslim and Arab synonymously. It’s similar to them thinking all Mexicans and Italians have darker skin and black hair.

As far as Oriental being a bad word, I don’t know who came up with it, but I find it frustrating that they did, and more frustrating that the substitute is Asian. They should have specified East Asian so ignorant Americans would have a clue about the geography.

My SIL was initially shocked that she was 50% West Asian when she got her DNA results, and I immediately said, “that’s exactly what you already know you are.” She had never in her 50 some years realized the Middle East is in Asia. She wasn’t educated in the US, but there are probably many Americans with the same ignorance. Her mother calls everyone from East Asia “Chinese,” and I pointed out to her one day they she gets annoyed when people call everyone from Central and South America “Mexican”. She is Mexican. People just don’t think sometimes. She knows Vietnam is a different country than China.

I’ve pointed out for years that most of my Black friends usually used Black not African American or both interchangeably. It was white people who seemed obsessed with using African American and that Black was supposedly offensive. Then recently Black people painted streets and wrote on signs Black Lives Matter, so maybe now we are over thinking the word Black is offensive.

I think “Liberals” are trying to get away from categorizing people by skin color. The intention is good, but it doesn’t necessarily play out as they intended.

“Liberals” have been using Black for years.

Oriental is a word to describe rugs and vases.

Asian describes people that are from Asia. Why would that be frustrating?

You can be ethnically Jewish. And it can also be a religion. No other religion is considered an ethnicity.

@raum the use of the world “Asian” is frustrating because it doesn’t actually describe all Asians. Like @JLeslie and I have said before, what the word “Asian” means right now seem to be just East Asia, while Asia is a large continent that contains regions like the Middle East or South Asia. According to @JLeslie, some Americans seem to think the Middle East isn’t Asia. I don’t think I see people from more obscure Asian countries like Indonesia considered “Asian”.

And the word “oriental”, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means “relating to the countries of East and Southeast Asia”. So from the dictionary meaning, it can be used to describe rugs and vases as you said, and can also be used to describe people from East Asia. I don’t really get what is so offensive about it.

I agree with the first point though, and have no opinion about the last point.

Indonesians are definitely considered Asian. Same as Filipinos and Malaysians.

@raum yeah, that’s obvious. But when a lot of Americans say “Asian”, they are picturing an East Asian person. with East Asian features. They don’t think of Filipinos or Malaysians or even Arabs. At least that is what I am seeing.

@Mimishu1995 But if you put a Filipino or Malaysian person in front of “a lot of Americans”, I’m sure they’d have no issue with categorizing them as Asian?

@Mimishu1995: Yes. Russians are Asians yet when many people say “Asian” they are referring to East Asia (but not Russia).

@raum: Sometime ago, “Oriental” became politically incorrect due to the term “The Orient” refrerring to the colonies of England, Spain and France. When I was little, there was nothing wrong with the term Orientals.

@jca2

I’d say that Russians living west of the Ural mountains are European, and those living east of them are Asian (such as the glorious Nellie Kim).

Culturally, yes, but technically, they’re all Asians, @Brian1946.

@raum I believe they can, of course. But when the people are not there, they often use the word “Asian” when they are actually referring to “East Asian”. It’s like when people here in Vietnam use the word “Westerners” to describe white, European-looking people. They can recognize a black American as a “Westerner” if you show them a picture, but when they say “Westerners” in a conversation, they don’t refer to black people, they refer to the white ones.

@Mimishu1995 I’m not sure if pandering to stereotypes is the best approach for choosing an appropriate term?

@jca2

I’m saying geographically, because the Urals form the border between Europe and Asia.

I understand, @Brian1946.

@raum @Mimishu1995

Is Eastern Asian an accurate term to describe the people of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, and China?

@raum that’s what I’m getting at. “Asian” as a way to categorize race, as I’m seeing it now, is pandering to stereotypes. It isn’t a good way to refer to the people it is meant to refer to. “Asian” as a descriptive term for a continent is great, but not as a term for a race according to Americans. Same for the way people here say “Westerners”.

@Brian1946 Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia are considered Southeast Asian.

@Brian1946 what @raum said.

But here’s the problem: Vietnamese people have so much in common with Chinese people. We look similar to them, have similar culture and language to them. And China is part of East Asia, and they share similar features to Japaneses and Koreans. That makes Vietnam some kind of lost sibling to the East Asian countries. Vietnamese people don’t share many features with the rest of South East Asia. Sure, there are some minority ethnic groups that have cultures similar to other SEA countries, but they are not the dominant culture of Vietnam, so they don’t amount much in the grand scheme of things.

That puts Vietnam in a rather awkward position: we look East Asian, but we don’t belong to East Asia. We are in SEA, but we don’t have much in common with Thailand or Cambodia.

@Mimishu1995 I think many Vietnamese people feel more connected to China than to Cambodia and Thailand, for two reasons (that I can think of).

One, we have a long history with them. Good and bad.

And two, I’ve found that many Vietnamese people are somewhat bigoted against other SE asians like Hmong, Thai and Cambodia.

But just looking at facial features, language, food…I would say that Vietnam is more closely related to Cambodia and Thailand.

Unless you’re talking north north Vietnam, which is more similar to China. It varies by region.

I was listening to my friend’s wife singing in Khmer and was really struck by how similar it was to Vietnamese. I have never felt that when listening to Chinese music.

@raum Before Kamala Harris ran for president I think probably half of Americans never used “Asian” to describe someone from South Asia. I think most Americans called people who were Indian-American, Indian. People from Iran are usually referred to as Iranian not Asian in America. Some Iranian people say they are Persian. Those are just two examples.

Do Americans refer to Israelis as Asian or Middle Eastern? Rarely. Maybe ME more than Asian.

I used to use Asian to refer to people from South and West Asian countries, but once people couldn’t use Oriental anymore, and Asian came into fashion instead, I seldom refer to the continent.

Generally, I think the country is better anyway. Continents are huge and diverse and each country is different.

@raum yeah, I agree that we are quite racist against other SEA countries. We think of them as lesser in everything: less intelligent, less attractive, less property… Maybe because at some point in history the stereotypes were true. I don’t think it still is now.

I’m not sure about language though. I don’t know anything about Thai or Cambodian so maybe our language is structured similarly to them? But we do borrow a lot of words from Chinese. Even the writing system before the arrival of Westerners were borrowed from Chinese you know the one right :P

I remember walking in a market in Thailand and saw a thrift trader with a loudspeaker. The song playing was so similar to a genre in Vietnam that I was shocked it was in Thai. I don’t think I have ever seen that kind of singing in China.

And I think that might also be why Vietnamese’s cartoon art has never looked like anime. Korea and China have tried to develop their own anime art style and succeeded. Their art looks enough like anime while still has distinctive styles for each country. Vietnamese’s art just ends up looking like a bad copy of either three countries. But when we don’t do anime style, we do have a distinctive art style that… isn’t like anyone. I believe art can tell a lot about a person.

@Mimishu1995 I think Vietnam was tired of being bullied by China. And looked for other countries to bully. Kind of like how the bullied kid on the playground sometimes becomes a bully themselves.

Our spoken language is more similar to Kmer and Thai. The reason why our written language is more similar to Chinese is because we were occupied by them for so many years.

Now I’m super curious to see all of the different anime styles!

@raum to be honest sometimes those art styles can be indistinguishable :P But if you look closely the distinctions are still there.

Here are a few images of the Japanese art style (manga)

Here are some from Korea (manhwa)

Here are some from China (manhua)

You can see that Japanese art style seems to be more rough and simple, while Korea looks a bit softer and brighter, and China just seems to take everything that looks soft and nice from Japan and ramps it up to eleven, while adding more details to everything.

I think the styles of each country are more visible when they go full-on cartoony instead of semi-realistic drawing.

Here is Japan

Here is Korea

Here is China

And here is Vietnam. Sorry I can’t find any good example for that right now

@Mimishu1995 That’s super interesting! Readily recognize Japanese style. Only recognize Korean style in the context of BTS fan art. Vietnamese style is newest to me. I might recognize the super cartoony ones from old school kids sweatshirts they sell at flea markets. :P