Segregated America (Few of Many Thoughts)

It is currently 2014, and I sadly still live in a segregated world. There’s a cultural, economic, racial, and irrelevant division between the races of America, still. What does it mean to “act black”? What does it mean to “listen to black music”? What does it mean when you call someone weird because they wear a turban, or don’t eat pork, because of religious reasons, is that really weird? Just because it’s different…

I don’t think we see what’s happening today. I don’t think we realize the segregation of the country that we’ve been fighting for years. A former mayor of Albuquerque, and senator of Mexico, David Rusk, said “Long Island is the most segregated suburb of America.” (At a Hofstra University conference on racism ... and it has been later that segregation is decreasing). We have towns that you can drive for miles and not find one black person. Or one minority, not one Spanish American, or Indian American … anyone of brown skin or someone that just looks different. Is this a ‘good area’ with a ‘good district’? And then we have towns that have a higher population of minorities, and higher rating of differences among the people that live there, and is this considered a ‘bad area’ with a ‘bad district’? Here on Long Island we even have one town, by the name of ‘Bellport’ that is literally separated by train tracks. One side is beautiful. Clearly the people that live on this side are wealthy, and the other side is a poor, really rough area. Now of course the poor side is mostly associated with black people and white people are associated with the nice side. The sad part about that is there are more black people on the bad side. Why? Because were stuck in a cycle of poverty. A mother has her children young, her children have theirs young and so on. These kids grow up without their father and the absence of a steady male father figure in their life, therefore thinking its normal to not have 2 parents, or don’t see a problem with it. Now myself being raised by my mother, I reserve judgment. I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to be raised by your mother at all; I see her being the strongest, smartest person in your life. However, I definitely think more positive results come out of a raising a child, when both parents are present in the child’s life. There are certain things that only a father can teach a boy, or can say to his daughter… and there are only certain things that a mother can teach her daughter or say to her son. I believe both parent plays an equally important role in someone’s life. But if you’re raised by just one parent, you wouldn’t really see it this way. Same way if your parents don’t stress to you that you need to go to college, to find a great job, to end the cycle of poverty – you’ll be stuck in it. No instead you’ve got people in these areas thinking it’s easier to just work 5 days a week, at minimum wage an hour job for the rest of their life, trying to survive and support a family on that salary. The priorities aren’t right.

Granted this is not the case for every black person in America, or even in Long Island. There are plenty of black people I know that are on the road to a beautiful future. They do well in school, or at least try to do well (which is always the start –) and know the importance of an education. That know that in today’s day and age, having a skill just won’t cut it, and that education is necessary. Looking at Long Island, socioeconomically wise, (socioeconomics is the social science that studies how economic activity affects social process) African American children are three times more likely to live in poverty than white kids are. They are also more likely to have higher mortgages, while unemployment rates are doubled for African Americans. African American children are more likely to go to poverty stricken schools than white children, therefore depriving them of a fair and equal education. These are just some of the differences that have been studied and shown in the study of socioeconomics, and these are more than enough to prove my point. There isn’t an equal opportunity; it’s almost like in the 1800’s when white people did everything in their power to keep black people financially dependent on white men. But no one’s going to change it for us. We have to do that.

it has been noted that segregation has decreased, but it still exists. We will never be able to rid the world of racism, and prejudicial hatred, but we can change what people see. We can show them more of how smart we are, and how far back the beautiful history of a repressed culture and people goes.