Unspoken black/white segregation: Choice or societal structure?

[orange]

A little retrospect on my first year at uni here.

First some background: I attended a typical suburban school where only between 40 and 50 kids were African American of a school of about 1,200 people (grades 10-12). Most of them were either Basketball/Football stars who hung around with the typical jerky jock crowd, or fell into other assorted groups such as gangs, druggies, or the Malcom X 'we hate whites' group. One in the grade above me was an audiovisual guru, funny as hell, and student council president I believe for his class...I talked to him occasionally, but not often, mostly just joking around when I went to visit other friends in AV. So yes, I don't have much experience with being close friends with African Americans, but not by choice as I am not a racist.

Now in college, my current RA lives right across the hall from me, is african american, and we get along great. In fact, we talk often, and I recently found out that he plays Age of Empires competatively (as do I). Very nice guy, friendly, talkative...graduates this year. I'll be taking his position

This all has a point, I assure you...the University of Delaware is very culturally diverse, there are many more African Americans than my high school, by number and percent of the total population....this year, through various campus activities and such, I took notice of a normal part of society that you probably see every day and don't put much thought into.

African Americans hang out with African Americans.

Not only this, but they all seem to know each other by name. If you see two African Americans walking up to each other on the street in a University, 90% chance they'll know each other, give greetings, chat for a bit, and then as they leave one will tell the other that they will give them a call...

...however, I have rarely if ever seen the same thing happen with an African American and a white.

Why is this? And more importantly - is this a sign that racial segregation still exists in society, or is it a sign that African Americans simply prefer to hang out with African Americans? In other words, what is the root cause of this phenomenon.

Am I saying it's a bad thing? Certainly not...honestly, as long as there are no laws creating the segregation, I couldn't care either way...people are people and they'll be with/talk to who they want to. And of course there are many cases of inter racial mingling, especially within the athletic realm of University society, and even my flatmate nextdoor is in an interracial relationship right now (he being white, her being black).

I will post my thoughts in a bit...particularly interested in hearing Chegitz's thoughts, but all comments welcome of course, as always.

Some ideas to get us started...
Black Student Unions
Socio-economic differences of African Americans and Whites
Suburbanites and rural whites not being in contact with many African Americans
Last of the 'racist generation' (Pre-baby boomer) haven't died off yet.
African Americans simply have different interests than whites

[chequita guevara]

A little of column A and a little of column B.

[Caligastia]

Birds of a feather flock together. Its only natural.

[orange]

bah, I write all that and that's all YOU have to say. I expected a friggin' novel!

[MrFun]

You're just realizing now, that there is voluntary, social segregation??

[orange]

no...read it again dumbass

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by orange
bah, I write all that and that's all YOU have to say. I expected a friggin' novel!

In my personal experience, Black folks who get to college are very cliquish. I wasnt just being silly when I said that. There are a number of reasons, ranging from just liking to hang with people who've had similar experiences as you, to not wanting to have to put up with white stupidity. The only real strctural segregation I saw was the Greek system. White frats were white, Black frats were Black.

I'm sure you want me to go into more detail, also.

While your university is far more diverse than your high school, I'm willing to go out on a limb and guess that's it's still motly a white institution? Yes? Well, consider that for many Black students this is their first time in a largely white environment. It is rather disorienting, about like spengin large amounts of time as a white person in largely Black environments. You look for the familiar for support and grounding.

On the other hand, you have to deal with a lot of white people who want to know all about the "Black experience" or who think they know all about Black people, and want to tell every Black person all about it or who think that Black people are really cool and want to hang out with you all the time. After a while it gets to be a bit much.

And, a lot of Black people really don't like white folks very much. There's resentment over how easy it has been for some white folks to resentment over racism, real and perceived. Some Black people don't like the way we smell. We act goofy. We talk funny. We act disrepectful, etc. A lot of things that are appropirate in "white culture" are completely inappropriate in Black culture.

There's also some social responsibility. Having made it this far, a lot of Black students look out for one another to help them make. Just like, say, Korean Grocier Associations, Black students try and help each other out to try and lift their group as a whole.

[Guynemer]

Friggen novel? Why write a friggen novel when Che summed it up so nicely in that one phrase?

Different strokes for different folks, man. Some people do segregate themselves, whether it's based on race, politics, religion, whathaveyou. Some people segregate based on academics. For the last three years of my undergrad career, the people who lived in my apartment:

My pasty white ass.
A black guy from a different Detroit suburb, by far the funniest and most friendly person I've ever known. Currently at Harvard Med School.
A white Hispanic guy from a rural Michigan town, by far the smartest person I've ever known, currently in the M.D./Ph.D. program at Harvard.
And an Asian guy (Tiawanese) from Delaware, nearly as funny and friendly as the first guy, and nearly as smart as the second guy, currently at Johns Hopkins Med.

Pretty good training for me; I was the dumbest mofo in the apartment, and now I'm the dumbest mofo at UM Med. And while we all shared the same academic interests, we all had separate interests and friends outside of the pre-med cohort we all hung around in.

Criminy, I'm rambling... bottom line, it's nothing to get your panties in a bunch about.

[MrFun]

Hey Orange -- no need to call anyone names.

As for the "racist generation", it does not matter when the day comes, that they are all dead and gone.

Racism is perpetual -- or what specifically, do you mean by the racist generation?

[orange]

you're right, I'm sorry...just seemed like you only took one sentence of all that I wrote up there.

What I mean is, the last generation that lived through a time where racism was not only accepted, but in some places law protected, are still alive. As they die off, racism will go down exponentially. Their sons and daughters will be half as racist, their grandchildren 1/4 as racist, and so forth until we've only got a few dumb ****s running around who still believe in white supremacy and all that crap. We would be the grandchildren or great grand children in some cases, where we're a lot less likely to be racist, but there still are some racist people in our generations.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by orange
you're right, I'm sorry...just seemed like you only took one sentence of all that I wrote up there.

What I mean is, the last generation that lived through a time where racism was not only accepted, but in some places law protected, are still alive. As they die off, racism will go down exponentially. Their sons and daughters will be half as racist, their grandchildren 1/4 as racist, and so forth until we've only got a few dumb ****s running around who still believe in white supremacy and all that crap. We would be the grandchildren or great grand children in some cases, where we're a lot less likely to be racist, but there still are some racist people in our generations.

Apology accepted -- mine was a dumb-ass remark, I guess.

Yeah -- we can't forget the continuation of neo-Nazi groups, Aryan Nation groups, and the traditional Ku Klux Klan. They will always find members in every succeeding generation.

[Caligastia]

If blacks want to stick together its ok, but if whites do its racist

[MrFun]

Cal, I rate your poor quality troll 0.25 out of 10.

I thought you were good at trolling, but I guess I was mistakened.

[orange]

but you see, Cal is right, in his own pointblank way. If a bunch of whites say they want to hang out with whites because they can relate better, it's racist. But if a bunch of blacks do the same thing, they're elevating their racial status. It's a bull**** double standard.

[MrFun]

I disagree Orange.

It does not matter either way to me if blacks want to hang out with mostly other blacks, and whites want to hang out with mostly other whites.

To me, it's not necessarily racist for either group.
Let's look at another example of minority group social behavior --

most gays prefer going to a gay bar, to associate with other gays, while most heteros prefer going to a straight bar, to associate with heteroes. Does this mean that those heteroes are homophobic or heterosexist??

Of course not.