<p>Regarding self-segregation:</p>
<p>(Disclaimer: I'm committing the CC cardinal sin of relying on anecdotes and personal experiences, rather than data sets and journal articles, so take this with a grain of salt)</p>
<p>Most of my friends who claim that they don't have a "self-segregation problem" at their schools go to a school that is largely majority white. I grew up in a city that is mostly white. Of course there isn't a huge self-segregation image when there aren't as many minorities, because when it happens, it's not as visible. If you went to Rutgers in NJ, purely because there are so many Indians there, it is entirely possible that an entire bench of people is full of Indians. But that doesn't mean they're self-segregating, just that statistically, it's more probable that their friends are Indian too. At Duke, people say that black students self-segregate more so than, say, at UCSD. Do you know how many black students there are at UC San Diego? Not that many. So who gets accused of self-segregating at UCSD? Asians. Ever think that maybe it's because Asians form a huge part of the campus population? For some reason, I never hear any accusations of "self-segregating whites" at Vandy or BC. </p>
<p>Regarding central campus living arrangements, I have no idea because I don't live on Central. Cafeteria seatings? I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone I know just sits where there's any empty table. </p>
<p>Race at Duke, like everywhere, is a really complicated subject. I've probably contradicted myself many times in this comment, but the main gist is that I'm tired of hearing that Duke is racially fractured. Most stereotypes have a grain of truth, so I think the "grain" here is that we have a huge minority population at Duke (emphasis: of DIFFERENT minorities, not just one), and we're working out how to have it all work: balancing importance of cultural groups without over-empowering the importance of race, the connotations of "minority recruitment", homogeneous Greek life. But you know, almost half the school, not white, in the South? That's huge. It doesn't always work. But most of the time it does, and most of these racial tensions to which people allude are on the fringe and have been exacerbated by non-Duke students (thank you, lacrosse). </p>
<p>I would not say that Duke has racial tensions erupting and is self-segregated, because that connotes a static university that doesn't give a damn about working for change. You know what IS static? Keeping levels of minority recruitment low and claiming there's no self-segregation problem, because everyone molds to the majority with the occasional MLK Day event, Lunar New Year celebration, and you have a group of friends of "all different colors!" like some freaking Crayola box of crayons. </p>
<p>Then again, my Duke is different from anyone else's Duke, and I interpret things different from other students. My experience has largely been positive because I made it so, but I understand if anyone else thinks differently of race at Duke.</p>