Welcome to Alternative Ideas...

Providing a platform for new and different voices...

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Disturbing Segregation

It is a shame that American's don't see some of the most noteworthy benefits of their own country.  America is a melting pot.  Every American is taught this from the day they start school and is 'marketed' as a positive thing.  This is claimed to be one of the reasons that the country is so 'tolerant', the country is after all made up of almost nothing but people from different places (and the few native americans that weren't killed off...).  So why is it that American's don't actually relish in the cosmopolitan opportunities of their own society?  We revel openly in the stories of splendor and vibrance with our diversity, but then upon a closer look, we are afraid of living in or visiting certain neighborhoods and/or cities where we could actually see and experience this.

When we look at the composition of our cities and neighborhoods there are always the distinct areas of/for certain ethnic groups.  Chinatown, Little Italy, Harlem, etc, every ethnic group seems to have its little enclaves throughout the country.  There are obvious practical reasons for this given migration issues and attempts to gain footholds in new areas.  But what then of the average white person that has been living in the US for multiple generations and does not want to live around "those types of people"?

The majority of whites in the US live in "racially isolated" areas.  Meaning that throughout most of their day they interact almost exclusively with white faces and white american culture - no diversity, no new ideas, no semblance of a different way of living from their own.  This is viewed as fine.  People want to move to areas or certain neighborhoods to be around people they 'identify' with, are of the same ethnic categories, income levels, backgrounds, whatever.  But how is this a melting pot?  How does this promote integration?  And most importantly, how does this possibly promote understanding of the realities of the world?

We as a society are isolating ourselves from the world we live in.  In terms of economics specifically, we do whatever it takes to block out a vision of the 'underclasses'.  We don't drive through the ghetto, never mind live and experience the lifestyles there.  This type of understanding and experience is important.  Kids should not grow up privileged - and by this I do not mean to make them pay for part of their car or to make them earn their own spending money.  I mean that kids should grow up in, around, and involved with people of all aspects of life - colors, creeds, economic capabilities, sexual preferences, etc.

American society today is voluntarily segregated specifically against this type of integration, and we are losing ourselves because of it.  We look at society and we say, I don't want to live there - there is to much crime, or poverty, or trailer parks... maybe its too rural, to 'black', to 'white', to whatever.  How can we as individuals ever expect to truly understand other people, let alone the world we live in, if we are unwilling to actually experience it for ourselves?  "I don't want my kids to grow up there because...."  Because you don't want them to actually see the way the rest of the world actually is.  For if they saw it, they might not like it, maybe even want to change it.  And that of course would force us to see it... to realize it exists... and maybe, just maybe, to even feel bad about it...  

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep all comments and queries cooperative, constructive, and supportive in nature... Attacking, biting, or non-constructive comments will be removed. We want to build upon ideas, not tear them down...