<p>your friendships should be organic not based on bean counting. being friends or not being friends with somebody because of their/your race is a little creepy. if I was white and saw a “black” table in the dining hall…it would not make me like or dislike a school. what is it that you want? hi I am white and I need to feel validated by having non white people like me, will you be my friend? what about us folks from miscellaneous families? what are we to do? just be yourself, be tolerant and stop worrying about bean counting.</p>
<p>I think my kids generation is adopting an entirely different view than the current race-consciousness of liberal thought. It’s really sort of race unconscious. They never mention the race of their friends. For example, I asked what ethnicity a friend was because I couldn’t tell by looking and my kids considered that odd. Like why ask? They don’t understand that when I grew up there were no Persian Guatemalan kids.</p>
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<p>TatinG, I think this is much less likely to be the case for kids in a minority group.</p>
<p>In California, our kids generation have so many mixed race that race is a question mark. What race is a half Asian, half Hispanic person? Half Caucasian, half Hispanic? part Korean, part Jewish, part Caucasian? Part black, part white, part Cuban? </p>
<p>D’s roommates are Asian. S’s roommates are Hispanic, Asian, and two I’m not too sure and it’s considered odd, even rude to ask.</p>
<p>Thanks for your posts Mathmom. And TatinG and LongRangePlan, I do think that California shares the same benefit as New York with a true mixing of races and cultures. My D has had a lot of diversity in her friends - race, religion or lack thereof, nationality, SES, politically, etc… We don’t speak of people in terms of their race. I would think that friendships would be made based on common interests and as Mathmom put it, that would probably look like a Venn diagram if there’s true integration at a school. Zobroward that’s what we’re looking for … not bean counting. But then again, for us, ideally there shouldn’t be so few different beans that one can count them at first glance.</p>
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<p>Unless I’m a different generation than your kids (I’m in college now), I disagree. Race is still a very important today. Maybe it’s less so than your generation, but race is still a thing.</p>
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FWIW, I can give an update from the very limited view of a parent who is 800 miles away. My D is a senior and we have only visited twice so my direct observations are minimal. At H 98% of the students live on campus all four years. The school assigns them to their freshman dorms and in the Spring of their freshman year they self select “blocking groups” of up to eight students that they will be housed with for the next three years. My D’s blocking group was all girls from her floor of her freshman dorm. Half are white and half asian american. In terms of SES, they range from students on full FA to students that are full pay. No two have the same academic major. While my D has plenty of friends from her major and from her EC, her blocking group is her core social group. When we visited we have met friends of hers of all races, nationalities, religions, and backgrounds from her EC and study groups so we have no concerns about integration there.</p>
<p>My S belonged to a fraternity in college that was very racially diverse: black, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Korean, European and everything in between. They were also diverse in terms of economic status and religion. That particular set of guys obviously chose to live in a diverse community. </p>
<p>On the various occasions when I was on campus, the only group that I observed obviously self-segregating appeared to be Chinese students, and even that was not consistent.</p>
<p>It is also true that there were probably other forms of self-segregation that were not visible to me. </p>
<p>People may choose to belong to a group that could be considered “self segregated” in one part of their life, while interacting regularly and cordially with a broad range of people in other parts.</p>
<p>When I was in college, back in the early/mid 70s, self-segregation by black students was de rigeur at my school. One (very witty) black student in my dorm who bucked the trend to some degree referred to it as “nouveau racist.” Many of those girls had come from middle class or upper class backgrounds where they were in a distinct minority, and they had always had to deal with that and had always had many white friends. Suddenly they were not allowed to sit anywhere other than “the black table.” Others had come from the reverse situation, and they had trouble dealing with a school which projected pretty much the essence of privilege, mostly white (and Asian) privilege. The Civil Rights movement was not a distant memory. MLK was assassinated while we were in HS. The Watts riots happened when we were in 6th grade or so.To complicate matters, the social stratification within the black community, with lighter-skinned girls who were members of groups like the Jack and Jills coming from a different place from darker-skinned girls from different backgrounds. There were plenty of instances of other students and professors exhibiting insensitive behavior, even on the part of people whose hearts were really in the right place. It was a difficult time, and people often rubbed each other the wrong way without meaning to. </p>
<p>I can understand why they needed to self-segregate, although I found it disturbing and disappointing at the time. I think things are better now. But there’s always room for improvement.</p>
<p>Ive told this story before but I think it illustrates the difference between how the generations view race.</p>
<p>When I had to pick my daughter up in high school for an appt., I went to her classroom where the door was closed but several students were working in the hall. They asked if they could help me & when I said I was there to pick up my D, they replied that I must be “Penelope’s mom”. I expressed surprise that they could tell right off the bat & they reassured me that I looked just like her. ( she is quite gorgeous).</p>
<p>I was so pleased with myself all day, even after I commented to D that her friends thought I looked just like her, and she replied dryly, that she was the only white girl in that class!
;)</p>
<p>Cltdad - good news! Thank you.</p>
<p>Consolation it’s good to see that progress has definitely been made, but as you noted, there’s still much room for improvement. </p>
<p>Vladenschlutte, where are you? If not the specific college, would you be willing to share which geographic location? </p>
<p>Emeraldkity4 - LOL!</p>
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<p>Ann Arbor. South-East Michigan. But it was the same in Central Florida where I used to live.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s Just my kids and their friends. They roll their eyes at the required diversity classes on campus. They view them as dinosaurs from another time entirely. I visit both campuses very frequently and except for one campus that has an all black fraternity I don’t see self segregation. How is sons friend who is Egyptian/Filipino supposed to segregate himself?</p>
<p>Tatin, when the people teaching the diversity classes all appear to be Caucasian, middle class, educated & neuro typical, I would roll my eyes too.
;)</p>
<p>Sounds like those teaching the diversity class are all different shades. White, off white, lily white…</p>
<p>^^^^ Curious as to the sample population upon which such a strong statement is based. Certainly hasn’t taken into account the experiences of D and an army of her different shade of white friends. (how is it okay to say that oh…then it must be okay to describe D’s Cultural sensitivity teachers as…over toasted, off tan, bleached black, …how acceptable is that?)</p>
<p>wow. this thread has been officially derailed into the gutter!</p>
<p>When I was an undergrad, I helped run the fencing club at my school. We knew that we appeared to be quite a …"monochromatic " group, but what could we do about it? We recruited heavily during activity fairs, and we tried our damnedest to get as many people as possible to stay with us ( we were really desperate to get the club to grow). I feel like deliberately trying to round up “diversity hires” would have been inappropriate, and unsuccessful .</p>
<p>I could swear my son’s college (Grinnell) was quite diverse (especially for the middle of IA) and well integrated. We visited campus often and it was striking. Most students did live on campus all 4 years and there were no price differentials for different dorm rooms.</p>
<p>Also, the on-campus activities were free.</p>
<p>At last check, the students at Grinnell were 13% international and 22% domestic students of color. The economic diversity crossed all categories, but I know most of my son’s friends were not wealthy because we got to know the students and sometimes their parents. An exception was a friend from India, but they didn’t know she came from wealth until some of them visited her in India. No one gets points for being wealthy at this school or demerits either. You could certainly not tell from the way students dressed who had money. It was a jeans and t-shirt kind of place.</p>
<p>Plus, there were no expensive restaurants in town nor were there hotels. We just stayed wherever we could get a bed. Tractor dealerships, yes!</p>