<p>I went to a college visit last week and the school seemed so self segregated. In the cafeteria there wasn't one table that had students of mixed races. I honestly can't understand that. I also wonder if the fact that there are students unions exclusively based on race (my school doesn't have any) promotes that idea.</p>
<p>I go to a really diverse school that has its fair share of Black, Latino, and White students, though it sadly lacks in Asians. Race is a non issue to me and my 3 best friends have four races between them.</p>
<p>I'm African American and Catholic but I love getting to know people who have different races, religion, beliefs, etc than me I don't identify with people because we have the same race I'd rather get to know them first.</p>
<p>I'm wondering if a lot of schools in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic, especially the schools I considering applying to (UCONN, BC, Tufts, Yale, Wesleyan U, Swarthmore, Williams, and safeties) have this problem. I don't want to go to a school where people don't make the effort to get to know people that are different from them.</p>
<p>Self-segregation is kind of a fact everywhere I've ever been in my life, and I live in the northeast.</p>
<p>I'm not sure you will find a place that is exclusively without it. People just tend to flock to other people that are similar on some level or that they think they can relate to. It is a bit of a shame, I agree.</p>
<p>Wait...what do you mean when you say "schools that lack diversity"?</p>
<p>Well I read self-segregation at Duke before my D went and while I have not asked her, I have not noticed it with her AT ALL!.......dang......</p>
<p>Okay, I'm kinda joking about the dang, but we supported her choice of going a great distance and at great expense IN PART because she's never really been exposed to Blacks outside her family before. We wanted it to at LEAST be an option. Well it is, but the friends we met during family days were from a variety of racial/ethnic groups.</p>
<p>I went to college in the 70s, and black students at the schools you cite for the most part voluntarily self-segregated and were in general "nouveau militant" as one black student I knew remarked. Any white student who had the temerity to sit at a "black table" in the dining room would be completely ignored. Black students had their own society house--no other ethnic/racial group did--and so forth. It was extremely rare for black students to choose to room with whites (the reverse of earlier decades). Those were different times. There were different pressures on all concerned. </p>
<p>I don't think it has anything to do with the region of the country, really. I would suggest that you check out the thread in the Parents Forum entitled Middle Class Black Posters, or ask over there. You will find people who have had experience of the situation you describe.</p>
<p>I live in the Northeast too. CT isn't extremely diverse but the schools I've gone to have been.</p>
<p>I don''t see how, for example, you would instantly flock to someone who looks likes you, rather than someone who plays the same sport as you, listens to the same music, etc. It's 2008!</p>
<p>I'm hoping that this is the kind of thing that is only a problem if you make it one rather than a constant occurrence.</p>
<p>the problem nowadays is finding a table where people are seated long enough to be able to come to any clear conclusions about whether self-segregation exists. So much of the modern dining experience consists of "grab n' runs" of sandwiches and a power drink, especially for upper classmen who for better or worse, have made friends, but may not always be dining with them. While the appearance of self segregation certainly asserts itself at Wesleyan, can we always assume that it's because one group is being unwelcoming to another? That being said, I'd be very surprised if there were NEVER tables with a mixture of faces at them.</p>
<p>The concern you described led me to attend Haverford (great choice for me) so you might want to look into it. Based on the schools you asked about it is my understanding that you probably would find what you are looking for at Yale, Wesleyan, and Swarthmore. I have a lot less confidence in BC, Tufts, and UConn being great fits for you, again solely based on what you described.</p>
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I don''t see how, for example, you would instantly flock to someone who looks likes you, rather than someone who plays the same sport as you, listens to the same music, etc. It's 2008!
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<p>I think that's a healthy outlook that will serve you well. And there are many others out there that think similarly. You will find them at just about every school these days, but obviously, not everyone you encounter will think that way no matter where you attend. </p>
<p>So what's your concern? That you saw people of the same race dining together? It does happen you know? And that, in and of itself, does not mean everyone has chosen to self-segregate as a way of life. </p>
<p>I'm more apt to agree with johnwesley's comments, but not just about Weslyan.</p>
<p>That's going to happen almost anywhere you go. I'm in graduate school, where there simply aren't very many students of color, and we still flock together. I hang out with white students, too, but for support purposes and just general comfort, I find myself gravitating (almost unintentionally) towards students of color. I've lived in the Northeast, I've lived in the South, it happens in both places and it happens across the country, too.</p>
<p>The existence of student unions for different races is not the reason why students sit together in the cafeteria or other places. Pick up a copy of the book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" by Beverly Daniel Tatum. It's good reading.</p>
<p>Let's also not pretend that race is a non-issue to anyone. Surely it is 2008, but racism has not ended, just mutated in form. Just because you associate with people of different races doesn't mean that race is not important -- I have friends of many races but that doesn't mean that I cease to be African American, identified as African American by both myself and others, and live under the system in the U.S. that categorizes people by race and assigns certain characteristics and stereotypes based on that.</p>