More white people died in the United States last year than were born, a surprising slump coming more than a decade before the Census Bureau says that the ranks of white Americans will likely drop with every passing year. “We’re jumping the gun on a long, slow decline of our white population, which is going to characterize this century,” said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. Earlier this year, census figures showed that for the first time in U.S. history, a majority of babies were minorities.