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[quote=momsdream, emphasis added mine ]
Game......... For all of you who want to see black themed dorms eliminated, just tell your sons and daughters to sign up to live in them.......... Set.......... There's more than one way to create an integrated campus....Match................ and it doesn't always have to be the black kids who put themselves out there.
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<p>Very nicely played. Bravo.</p>
<p>Well put, momsdream!</p>
<p>With respect to the LAC I attended, even back 30+ years ago we had minority students from both affluent and underpriviledged areas. For the reasons you described, the AA students who had spent their years being minority students in High School, plus the kids from the inner-city schools who might have faced some challenging adjustment issues to a select LAC somewhat far from home, I fully agree... providing a living environment that helps to increase the likelihood of a smoother adjustment and improved comfort just makes good sense. </p>
<p>At this particular school, if, as you suggest, the # of AA students was estimated to be 7%, we are talking about maybe 154 students. Not hundreds. Anything that helps every student adjust to college in the way that works best for them just makes good sense. That doesn't sound like segregation to me. Sounds like sensitivity and inclusion- not exclusion.</p>
<p>Momsdream:</p>
<p>I completely understand that segregated campus pre-frosh visits, orientations, and housing are designed to make minority students more comfortable and that this segregation has been implemented to meet the wishes of some minority students.</p>
<p>However, from a big-picture perspective, it seems to me that, if one group has a "been there, done that" attitude about integration, then it is unreasonable to expect other groups to similarly dismiss the value of integration. Seems like a self-perpetuating cycle to me.</p>
<p>Anyway, I didn't mean to start a debate on whether segregated housing is good or bad. I think on many campuses, theme housing is probably the best, albeit flawed, response to little desire for social mixing on the part of anybody.</p>
<p>I do think that, if a prospect want to evaluate real integration on a campus (among many different groups), a good place to start is to look at the degree of official or de facto "theme" housing.</p>
<p>(not directed at you, IDad - just the general attitude about integration and who needs to be "put out" by it)</p>
<p>"Been there, done that" is not dismissing the value of integration. They're just saying they're integrated....enough already. They've been attendig white schools, have all white friends, listen to so called "white" music, vacation in Europe, learned the Dreidel song when they were 3 (and baked the Dreidels too), (any idea how many times I have had to explain why we don't have a Menorah?) etc, etc, etc.... </p>
<p>Now, suddenly they realize there are a few hundred other blacks who will be going to school with them and this is new and exciting - and they would like to live with these people and "catch up". After all, they've alreay signed up to attend a school where they are one of about 7% of the AA population. Isn't that saying something about their view on integration? They've embraced it!</p>
<p>All I am saying is, give us a break already. Like I said, sign up for the themed housing and help integrate it. You want to integrate? Step up to the plate.</p>