Well, you get to define "significance", don't you? You have no idea what manner of racism I've experienced and I see no point in trying to enlighten you. I don't know what world you live in, amigo, but I suspect it is lily white.
It is interesting that some studies of high school desegregation have suggested that schools with a 50/50 mix have the least amount of racial trouble. Those schools that are 90% single race also report less trouble. The most friction comes when a minority student population is from 20 to 40 percent of the total. Not enough to achieve parity but too many to just assimilate. There may be parallels in neighborhoods.
This makes sense, I think more importantly, where the schools are is the biggest indicator of trouble. Where the kids are from. Kids coming from crime ridden neihborhoods, with little male role models are where the trouble is, and it doesn't matter if they are the 20/40% or the 60/80%
I taught for three years in a 60/40 school, and I can tell you that the tension was thick. During a lunch period in 1995, I sat with a group of white and black students and watched the OJ verdict returned in my classroom. It was a MOST uncomfortable moment for me as a teacher; emotions were high. As for an earlier comment that you made, Red. I agree that each generation is getting maybe not "less racist" but "more tolerant." My parents were far more tolerant than their parents. They passed that on to me, and I think have become even MORE racially tolerant by seeing how I feel about race. My older daughter is in a very multi-cultural school, and if she identifies a child as having brown skin, I don't know if they are African-American, Indian, or if they just have a good tan. She flat-out doesn't care one bit about race or ethnicity. It's a beautiful thing to see, and I'm not looking to change her opinions where race is concerned. She really does live in an "equal" sort of world--I think most young children do these days, and I feel like fewer parents are stepping in to mold negative racial stereotypes in their children's minds. But I could be totally wrong about that, too. Maybe that's because of the community where I live. Maybe I feel that way about parenting because my parents practiced more tolerance than a lot of people of their generation.
While this is true, it's also skewed. No kids are ever born being racist or prejudiced. It is learned, and not just from parents or others, but from observation.
While this is true, it's also skewed. :wink: There exists an born tendency for indiviuals of any species to be most comfortable among those who are most similar to them. So, I think some predisposition to distrust those who are different is inherent and natural. Group identity is an important part of the speciation process.
:wink: Figured someone would bring this up. However, while true, this is not in and of itself racism, which is why I ignored it for my argument.
i think much of how you determine who are more similar to is learned. i have seen not one incidence where my two year old has noticed skin color and he plays with black and white kids every day (of course, 1 is not a very large sample size). there is a huge step between recognizing differences and designating varying worth to those differences
Yes if we could just all get along the way the fans of various SEC teams do, it would go far to solving most of our problems. On second thought...
