For My Readers' Consideration
The Question of Integration
This essay is addressed to the good people of the world. The people who have committed themselves to fighting racism and promoting integration. Its purpose is to present to those people an idea for promoting integration and fighting racism in today’s world, without the stereotype created of integration in the past.
This essay also cannot speak to violent communities in the world. It is given in regards to a peaceful community, where races coexist in harmony, but unmixed. The problems involved with races in conflict are beyond my experience, and cannot be addressed at this time. These are simply observations of race from a peaceful, well meaning perspective.
Race. A very interesting phenomenon in today’s society. An unspoken, but more importantly, unseen topic in America today. The issue of race has challenged many people for years, and only recently has it been addressed so one sidedly. Yes, racism is wrong, we all say. Yes, everyone needs to be treated equally, we all say. No, I do not see race, we all say. It has no bearings on my decision, but I see people for who they are, and nothing more.
And that is how it should be, in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we do not live in that ideal world. However far we have come since Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the civil rights movement, we have further still to go. This essay will strive to address the question of true integration, by addressing it threefold. First, we must address the issue of seeing race, and the delicate balance that needs to be struck between ignoring race, and fighting racism. Second, we must address the issue of self-segregation, and the differences between the segregation of today and the forced segregation of the past. Finally, we must discuss what integration truly means in today’s society with our new definition of segregation, and if we are truly to fight for integration, the new methods in which it needs to be addressed.
To fight the problem of racism, people often say, we must be colorblind. We must ignore race in people and find only the qualities that make them who they are. What is their personality, what are they interested in, what are their values, etc. In this fight to ignore race, people fall into the trap of forgetting that while race is not an issue for them, it is still an issue for other people. They forget that other people still judge, still stereotype, and still discriminate against people because of the color of their skin. It is easy to forget, because these prejudices have taken new roots that are no longer blatant. Acts that perpetuate racism no longer take the form of kicking people out of restaurants, or a mob yelling derogatory terms and throwing rocks. It takes the form of jokes, of biased service, of subtle assumptions in almost all levels of society. These acts make people have to fight the stereotypes placed on people of their color, which puts a burden on them that some do not have to deal with. We cannot forget that. We cannot forget that while often we can forget our race, others live with it and must fight with it on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute basis. It is important to acknowledge race, and to see it, because in order to fight its negative consequences we must see it. Those who perpetuate them see race. Even if they do not mean to see it, they see it. Because of that, we must see it, and we must do so purposefully. It is not for personal interactions with a person of color that we must see it, but for our communal and societal awareness of attitudes towards those people. Without that, we cannot truly fight it. Our attitudes are not enough. It is the attitudes of others we must change.
This acknowledgment of race is also important when we are dealing with issues other than racism. Segregation, in the past, was something that was forced upon people. The enemy in that fight against segregation was obvious. People could easily march against the laws, and decry the government for the inequality that “separate, but equal” brought down upon people. However, in today’s world, the enemy that is segregation is not so obvious. Where forced segregation was the challenge of the past, self-segregation is the challenge of today. In communities, regardless of the level or type, race divides are obvious. People sit with their own race, talk with their own race, and make friends with their own race. With the exception of a few pockets of people and a few choice interactions, strong communities are generally of the same race. Sometimes they coexist with without conflict, and sometimes they do not. The segregation is inherent and clear. Integrating, in the past, was the process of allowing races to live in the same space. Today, that ability is a given. A community that holds many races today is not integrated, it is diverse. A truly integrated community in today’s society means that the racial boundaries are not apparent. It means that people in a given place do not separate themselves into their own little pockets based on race, but mix without question or restraint.
It is there, finally, that we must realize how integration can truly be created. Organizations devoted to teaching about ethnicities are good organizations. It is their purpose to educate others about something foreign to them, and to celebrate a certain background or culture. However, it must be recognized that they do not promote integration. A person going to an event to learn about a culture other then their own will come home more educated about the world, but they are still coming home to a community that is made up of the same people when they left. Often we make the mistake of thinking that if we somehow learn enough about the rest of the world, that we will solve the problem of not being connected to the rest of the world.
That, in the end, is the problem. Integration is not about learning. Integration is about what we come home to. The groups that are divided are groups of friends, not organizations. Therefore, if we are truly to fight segregation, we must learn to facilitate friendship, and stop facilitating events. Events are wonderful for education and for learning, but if our goal is truly integration, then it is the social event that is more important, and not the presentation.
And again, the issue of ignoring race comes back into focus. If we refuse to acknowledge race then we cannot see whether or not our personal communities are integrated. It is not out of malicious intent that we perpetuate segregation. Our communities have been naturally divided into race for so long, that it is hard to see the connections between peoples of different colors. But it happens, and it happens easily. Fast friendships have formed between peoples in many times and places without a thought. To make these small, personal friendships communal, however, we must be purposeful. If we have friends in different communities, we must remember that they can and will mix, if we make it happen. If we look and find that our group of friends is not integrated, we must go and find friends that do not look the same as we do. That is not to say we must force ourselves to make friendships based solely on race; however, if we do not actively try to make ourselves integrated, we cannot combat segregation.
Integration in the modern society is no longer an object of organization. It is an intensely personal thing, and that is why it is so difficult. If we are truly committed to fighting segregation, than we must force ourselves to become integrated, and that will involve sacrifice. It involves taking time away from some friends, and giving it to others. It involves seeing the painful side of race, something we are deathly afraid to acknowledge. And it involves changing our own comfortable community, because we know that in the end, it is our communities that are the things that need to change. Brown v Board of Education struck down segregation legally by stating that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” We are no longer legally bound to this separation, but we still live with it. It is time to bring integration past a point of legality, and into reality.