Voluntary Apart-heid

Integration, mixing it up, seems to be an idea that has become somewhat passé. A recent book by Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid, takes a look at the intractable fact of school segregation. We see it daily as well, as students make often unconscious decisions about whom to be with, and whom to shun. Mix it Up, a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance program, intends on bringing such voluntary segregation into plain view to provoke discussion, as well as action. That action for today, Nov. 15, is for students and staff to consciously choose to be with individuals and groups that they rarely would otherwise. The saddest aspect of this is that some view this as threatening, some kind of liberal multiculturalism. But what we have is conservative apartheid. If it is liberal multiculturalism to reach beyond the fears that divide us, so be it.

Our student leadership class surveyed our students this year to self assess the unseen walls that exist among us. Here are the results.

Total Students Surveyed: 300

Which best describes your school?

Welcoming 33%
Quick to put people in categories 67%

Which settings have you noticed people grouping themselves and others by categories?

After school clubs 52%
Assemblies 38%
Bus 53%
Cafeteria 47%
Classroom 40%
Recreational activities 76%
Other 21%

Which of the following categories create group boundaries at our school?

Appearance/style 88%
Academic achievement 22%
Athletic achievement 46%
Ethnicity 91%
Family income 31%
Gender 7%
Hobbies 48%
Home neighborhood 17%
Language 89%
Musical interest 20%
Political beliefs 3%
Race 92%
Religion 7%
Sexual orientation 78%
Other 12%

At our school, how easy is it to make friends with people in different groups?

Very easy 13%
Kind of easy 20%
Kind of hard 29%
Very hard 38%

This venom certainly has no simple antidote. Surrender to the confortable norm is no answer.