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" Global majority" is a collective term for people of African, Asian, indigenous, Latin American, or mixed-heritage backgrounds, who constitute approximately 85 percent of the global population. It has been used as an alternative to terms which are seen as racialization like "ethnic minority" and "person of color" (POC), or more regional terms like "visible minority" in Canada and "BAME" (BAME) in the United Kingdom. It roughly corresponds to people whose heritage can be traced back to nations of the Global South.
However, the term "global majority" has been challenged on two fronts. It does not include white ethnic groups that are cultural minorities in white majority societies, such as white Irish, white British Jews, and Romanichal in the United Kingdom. It is also seen as using "majority" out of context and, thereby, distorting language.
In certain parts of Canada, like Vancouver and Toronto, "visible minorities" make up the majority of the population. Advocates of "global majority" argue that the term "visible minority" creates a racialized group, in contrast with the white Canadian population.
In 2020, the Church of England created an Archbishops' Anti-Racism Taskforce to examine racism in the church. At the time, it primarily used the term "United Kingdom Minority Ethnic" (UKME). When the taskforce's report was published in April 2021, it chose a broader description of "United Kingdom Minority Ethnic/Global Majority Heritage" (UKME/GMH) as more appropriate than BAME. The language of "Global Majority Heritage" is seen as a reminder that minorities often come from a majority culture before migrating to the UK. However, some have rejected the term because it is seen as associated with critical race and intersectional theories.
In November 2022, the Labour-run Westminster City Council committed to replace BAME with "global majority." However, Conservative MP John Hayes remarked that the change was part of the "liberal left agenda" and said "Minorities and majorities are about the context — you can't use the term 'majority' out of context and assume it affords some sort of accurate description" and that the change of language is "deeply sinister and must be resisted at every turn."
However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the term has been used as a way to speak about racism in the United States. Some prefer the term over "person of color," as the latter focuses on a historical binary between African Americans as "colored people" and "color-free white people," thereby emphasizing race and white centrality. "Global majority" has been seen as a way to highlight race-related psychological processes and to place greater emphasis on less prominent voices in white-dominated spaces.
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