Self-Segregation

It’s a strange, but folks in East Texas tend to be self-segregating.
If anybody can explain this phenomenon, I sure wish you’d write in and educate me. I don’t get it.
I was reminded of how hard it is to break old patterns last year when I pulled up to drop off my son on the first day of middle school.
“It’s a third, a third, a third,” was the answer when we asked about the demographics of the school. In other words, the school is pretty nearly equally populated with white kids, black kids, and Latino kids.
Heck, I don’t even know the politically correct way to describe the groups. Caucasian? African American? Hispanic? Whatever.
Personally, just cus a person’s skin is pigment-challenged does not mean they relate to some region in Eastern Europe. I generally describe my ethniticity as Texan and leave it at that. I even write Texan in the box marked “other.”
Anyway, this mix of demographics seemed like one of the advantages to us in choosing a school for our son. Since he is a people person, we saw the advantage to him of learning to be comfortable with folks from all backgrounds with varying perspectives.
But on the first day of school, there it was plain as day. Yep, we’re in East Texas all right.
“See how the kids divide themselves into groups. The white kids are over there. The black kids are over there. And the Latino kids are in the middle,” I pointed out the obvious to my son as we pulled up in front of the school.
I really hated to call attention to the fact. I felt a piece of his childhood would be over forever when he recognized that there were self-imposed differences. It would complicate friendships that in elementary school had been unpolluted by race issues.
On the other hand, I couldn’t see any advantage in pretending that the lines don’t still exist. Within days, he would get the picture clearly from kids who would try to keep him on his side of the divide.
“Your job this year is to cross-pollinate as many friendships as you can. Seek out friends from each group, please, and honor your friends to each other.”
And than I added the phrase I send him off with every school day.
“Oh yeah, don’t forget, you’re the best young man in the whole world.”
So, okay, maybe I’m a little prejudiced on that particular point, but, hey, I’m a mom.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http://checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.