White Student Union forms at Georgia State

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So, just to be clear, under the definition of minority being used here, would white people in apartheid era South Africa be considered a minority or not? 

I know the word has a ton of baggage, and that's why it gets used by people like these student union ass hats, because it gets tied up with privilege and oppressed minorities need to be protected through things like the ERA, anti-discrimination laws and so forth, but if a tiny fraction of the population (who holds power) is not a minority then the word has become jargon.  It confuses instead of communicating, and also seems to carry some very strong connotations of either racism or anti-racism depending on who is using it and how.

Sigh.

As many people have tried to explain over and over and over again, the word "minority" doesn't just refer to counting numbers of people. It can also mean that a group holds a minority in different kinds of ways, not just in the one-two-three kind of way but also in the political power kind of way.

It can mean the least amount of decision-making power.

It can mean the least number of people.

It can mean less than half.

It can mean a group that is smaller than other groups.

A group can be a minority in one way, but not in other ways.

Can you think of any other words that can take on different specific meanings based on context? I bet you can!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It can even mean that somebody has less than the number of years of age required for legal majority. In the US, that is either 18 or 21, depending on the context.

[Pæs]

So, just to be clear, under the definition of minority being used here, would white people in apartheid era South Africa be considered a minority or not? 

No. They still held the social power.

but if a tiny fraction of the population (who holds power) is not a minority then the word has become jargon.  It confuses instead of communicating

You seem to be assuming that your preferred definition is the default and that any variation on that is some strange scarce-known use of the word.

In parliamentary procedure and in business, it just so happens that the rules for those domains dictate that the statistical majority (the subset which contains more than half of the set's elements) is the majority holder of the power.

In sociology, there are no such rules in place. A smaller group can hold the most power, making them a statistical minority and but not a sociological minority. Some might call them a dominant minority but in the context of race relations (as with the White Student Union) it seems sensible to use the term as it is most commonly applied to race relations.

It has a lot of definitions. When a word has a lot of definitions, context has to inform the one you select.

What you're being told is that in the context of race relations, it is reasonable to expect the word "minority" to refer to social power and that it's common that those who contest this use of the word and attempt to argue semantics do so with a racist agenda or bias.