Have We Overcome Segregation?

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1950. America was in the midst of a racial battle. African Americans used separate bathrooms, went to separate schools and were treated with the least amount of respect. The world was a much different place where segregation was the norm. Today though, the majority of Americans believe we have overcome this inequality. But have we really? When looking at the educational system in today’s society, you can easily find flaws in almost every aspect of it. Although I agree that we have came a long way in overcoming a lot of these issues there is still one that remains very prominent in almost every school in America: segregation. While segregation may no longer be taught or enforced nationwide, you still see it across schools within cliques, gangs, and social settings. Even though it may be human nature to “hang out” with people you can identify with the most, it is the negative acts against everyone else of different ethnicity that causes problems. Today these problems are widespread but because we live in a country that pretends we have overcome racism, it goes unpublicized. However, within doing some research you can find some of these stories of segregation in today’s society everywhere from the news to Hollywood videos. In a 2006 NBC News story, a school in Omaha, Nebraska was debating on splitting the school up into three different districts. The first district would be white, the second black and the third Latino. In defense for this proposal the state senator is saying, “Segregation exists right now. Our children are failing and our schools are failing. The gap between the achievements of white children and black children in their respective schools is not narrowing (Tibbles).” He proposes that each school would be able to ... ... middle of paper ... ... are acting out the way they are. A change is going to have to occur within the educational system and parenting, in order to see a change in society. Children learn a good majority of their social skills, including how to segregate from one another in school. When we have our children growing up with these ideas being instilled at home and at school, how can we expect any change in the future? If we are still having segregated proms and noose’s hanging from trees in the year 2009, where equality obviously doesn’t exist, when is the “real” change going to occur? Are we soon going to be going back to a time where African Americans used separate bathrooms, attend separate schools and are no longer treated with the respect they deserve? I believe if we continue allowing segregation the way we have been, that yes, we will eventually find ourselves reliving the 1950’s.

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