David Moore

Jen Arland

ENG 120, Section 4

November 8, 2018

Why Segregation is a Terrible Thing

For as long as human history has existed, people have been cautious, even scared, of

people who are different than they are. Some mostly-white people believed they were superior to

these indigenous people, or “savages” or “barbarians” or some other derogatory term. These

Caucasians naturally believed that they were superior to any foreign tribe, so the next logical step

for them was to make them slave away doing all the dirty work they couldn’t be bothered to do.

This inherently caused the enslaved races to despise their predominantly white masters.

Recently, thanks to a series of wars all over the world, these races have been freed to do

whatever they wanted, but that innate hatred still carried over, even generating distrust for other

races as well. Bias towards people descended from certain areas can cause unfair bias in

essentially every area of life: however, through proper steps by certain members of society, we

can minimize this hateful cycle of racism.

Large groups of people believe that racism is just one of the many evils that have been

reduced almost to nothing with political correctness. In a society dominated by a majority of

people who are offended by even the mention of a racial slang, they would appear to be correct.

Even Barack Obama, in his commencement speech to Howard University, states, “We’re no

longer only entertainers, we’re producers, studio executives. No longer small business owners
---we’re CEOs, we’re mayors, representatives, Presidents of the United States.” (300).

Nevertheless, it still exists, but in more subtle methods so as to not catch the attention of social

justice warriors. One popular method used by some police is criminalizing said people

beforehand, most often arresting on charges of drug trafficking. In fact, according to Michelle

Alexander’s essay “The New Jim Crow”, the U.S. puts more African-American people in prison

for drug charges twenty to fifty times as often as Caucasians, and has the highest rate of

incarceration in the world, even surpassing Communist countries like North Korea by a large

margin. People act like racism is an outdated mode of thinking that only a handful of diehards

retain, but the truth is, racism is still a very large threat to everyone, not just African-Americans,

making sure that certain people live in the proverbial lap of luxury while others are stuck

begging on the streets or in prison.

This overall segregation is not limited to face-to-face conversation. Facebook, for

instance, also shows the same telltale signs. Designed to bring people together, the website

instead has been used to sanction people off into their own personal bubble. Thanks to its entire

gimmick being able to see each other’s face, a majority of users have decided to associate almost

solely with members of their own race. The students, however, are not to be at fault. The human

brain subconsciously decides to take the path of least resistance, which in this case was

remaining in their own comfort zone.. College dorm rooms, too, were specifically designed to

bring people from different backgrounds together. Unfortunately, they were published publically

to students, so students, after checking the listings, actively noticed their roommate was different

racially and asked for someone they were more comfortable with. Although cultural diversity is

something everyone appears to strive for, it is much more difficult in practice. That being the
case, people tend to take the path of least resistance and simply stay in their own comfort bubble,

pretending to be racially diverse, but in actuality only interacting with their own race.

This self-segregation is especially evident in minorities, eventually leading to the

formation of minority clubs and fraternities in colleges and universities. Like most things in life,

this is both good and bad. On one hand, groups of people from the same place clustering together

can lessen sudden changes, like immigrating to a new country and learning an entirely new

language. However, if it stays that way, said people will remain stinted in their growth, clinging

to the things they enjoy and unwilling to change, even sometimes developing an us vs. them

mentality. This kind of thinking is what has led to the atrocities all over the world developed by

racism, like placing them behind bars on false charges or keeping them from obtaining a certain

job. So what can we do about it? Well, for one, you can personally look for people of different

ethnicities, and lead by example. Two: encourage people to break out of their comfort zone.

Introduce your own friends to any black, oriental or people of other races that you may know.

Finally, just live and let live. No matter what you do, there are some people whose mind you

simply can’t change, no matter how hard you try. Don’t let them get to you.

So in conclusion, diversity can be a very useful tool. Unfortunately, it needs to be

continuously kept up or, as shown by multiple studies, people will automatically revert into

racism. Our society that appears to value indiscrimination and diversity above all else actually

performs the exact opposite: people self-segregating themselves into their own bubble. For

racism to truly disappear, we need to actively find people of different ethnicities and invite them

into our circle of friends, and not just passively say we are and be done with it. We need to

actively seek out culturally diverse people, otherwise racism is just going to automatically win

this culture war.

 Works Cited

Boyd, Danah. “Why America Is Self-Segregating.” They Say I Say. 2016, 212.

Alexander, Michelle. “The New Jim Crow.” They Say I Say. 2010, 230.

Leonard, Robert. “Minority Student Clubs: Segregation or Integration?” They Say I Say. 2016,

279.

Obama, Barack. “Howard University Commencement Speech.” They Say I Say. 2017, 296.