Maybe we should look closer to home

Nj.com has about 65 pictures of the Colombia High prom.

http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2015/06/columbia_high_school_prom_2015_photos.html

(there are 48 here and another link with a bunch more)

I was stuck by how in all but a handful of pictures the goup or couple interactions were eithef all white or all African American. It looks like 2 proms in one building.

Now kids here are not racist. But how do we really become one if we do not interact?

Whoever took these pictures did a great job. They're beautiful. BUT...I see what you're saying. The few times I've been to CHS (I believe maybe 6x's in total over the years) I've seen in many of the classrooms black kids with black kids and white kids with white kids. That's my view and it may differ from those who have students there. If my view is the case then that would explain why these lovely photos aren't more integrated. I believe there were maybe 3 photos out of the ones they posted showing a mix of students. I would like to know why that is as well.

I don't know if I would have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it. I mostly just see a bunch of really stylish teens having a great time at prom.

Kids dividing themselves up voluntarily like this isn't racist at all, but it's certainly a vestige of racism that it happens.

My own child's CHS prom group was decidedly mixed: black/white/asian/gay/straight

I especially enjoyed the photos for that reason.

drummerboy said:
Kids dividing themselves up voluntarily like this isn't racist at all, but it's certainly a vestige of racism that it happens.

I'm not sure it's racism. In a lot of cases, it's simply comfort zones and shared life experience.

At family gatherings I still see the women in one room and the men in another. I don't see that as sexist... they just have different things they want to talk about.

Yes, there could be some latent race divisions at work at the proms, but at least the proms are (mostly) amicable. And they are not forcibly segregated like the ones that get into the news every year in the South, or even closer to home than we would like.

Saying it's racist is a bit of an oversimplification, I think. The comfort zones will combine more and merge over time, but it's not going to happen immediately or by artificial means.

I've noticed the same thing in CHS prom pictures posted on NJ.com in previous years... It's sort of natural to choose your friends from among people whom you have more in common with, but when you see it depicted visually like this, it really undermines all the happy talk about the "diversity" our kids experience and benefit from at CHS...

The diversity is there. The comfortable mingling will come over time. I really believe that.

I noticed it on facebook, as many friends posted photos of their children. Large groups of prom-goers gathered at houses to take photos before the prom. The groups I saw often had 10 to 20 beautifully dressed kids, but the groups of kids seemed to be either all black or all white. My daughter graduated in 2006 and her group of close friends was very racially diverse, but her friends were very artsy and a bit outside the norm. It would be interesting to ask some current students and parents about that.

I spent a lot of time with one group of kids (now in high school) as a scout leader, and observed the social sorting by race coming in strongly around fourth and fifth grade, as part of the formation of some strong "cliques".

We tried to keep our troop bonded and less clique-driven by mixing the kids up in patrols, creating tent assignments that crossed clique lines, etc., but the kids were very resistant, and tended to re-sort themselves whenever they could.

I'm not sure why it happened so strongly at that age, but I just wanted to share my observation of when it happened, how child-driven it seemed to be, and how it came before any separation into academic levels. I wish I knew the answers...I'd love to see my little guys stay as open to diversity as they are now.

mjh said:
My own child's CHS prom group was decidedly mixed: black/white/asian/gay/straight
I especially enjoyed the photos for that reason.

This describes my son's prom group as well. In addition, the young people were of different religions and included students from both towns.

H. sapiens will not be color-blind for the foreseeable future. Eliminating discrimination is a endeavor that will never end.

I scanned through about 15 pictures and noticed a couple interracial couples and mixed groups. So I don't see what the OP is seeing. Don't look for problems where they don't exist. There's enough real racism and segregation to worry ourselves about.

Hahaha said:
I scanned through about 15 pictures and noticed a couple interracial couples and mixed groups. So I don't see what the OP is seeing. Don't look for problems where they don't exist. There's enough real racism and segregation to worry ourselves about.

Agreed. It looks like an incredibly diverse student body having the time of their lives...together.

About 20 years (or so) ago, there was a lot of interest in this district in a book by Beverly Tatum; the title was something like "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" - it analyzed many of the things we've seen in this district: kids mix happily in the elementary schools, start to separate by race (some, not all) in the middle schools and into high school and then start to reform into groups by interests. Dr. Tatum studied how the self-selected racial separation was a way for each group to affirm its own identity, figure out how they wanted to act/interact/present themselves - she felt that it was a natural process and that it was an important step for the kids to go through. I remember going to a number of panel discussions about the book and the issue; the adults wanted to see the kids intermixing throughout the school years as they had initially, but they didn't seem to be doing it, even then.

It was an excellent book and I believe it is still in print if anyone wants to look for more details than I'm remembering here.

There is also a body of evidence that this results from parents NOT talking about race in the well intentioned but misguided belief that by doing so they will raise their children to be "colorblind." The result is often the opposite, the children still see race but "learn" about it from friends or make up their own conclusions.

The New York Times did a series of articles focusing on Columbia H.S. and issues surrounding diversity of the student body. It was about ten years ago and worth looking up.

There is a lot more mixing at CHS than there was in my high school. I went to HS of Music & Art in NYC, graduated in 1978. I think the difference is explained more by changing times (for the better) than other factors.

I don't know. I remember when I was a kid I jogged along quite happily without thinking about whether other people liked me or if I fit in anywhere in particular, until sixth grade. Then, quite suddenly, cliques began to form, and kids began to think about themselves and others in terms of how they fit certain molds. There were people (the "cool" crowd) who suddenly wanted nothing to do with me any more, and I found that mystifying. Of course, that soon turned into the rabid insanity that often characterizes junior high, with girls offering to beat me up simply because I liked the teachers and didn't dress the way they did.

Do all kids just go through a process of examining themselves and others starting around puberty, and simply work on that in various ways until they are fully adult? It is a time of self-examination and inspecting others, almost like Harry Potter's Sorting Hat. Where do we belong? That seems to play a huge role in teens' lives.

Perhaps that has something to do with this unexpected division among kids who seemed not to even notice the differences when they were younger.

spontaneous said:
There is also a body of evidence that this results from parents NOT talking about race in the well intentioned but misguided belief that by doing so they will raise their children to be "colorblind." The result is often the opposite, the children still see race but "learn" about it from friends or make up their own conclusions.

I agree with this.

In my own personal experience, I noted one of my children's group of friends becoming more homogeneous as he started deciding who he wanted to play with (as compared to my setting up playdates). I mentioned to him that many schools are still quite segregated in NJ, but our schools provide more opportunities to make friends with people who are different from us. Since then he has re-connected with a more diverse group of friends.

Even more dramatically, I saw firsthand how kids "learn" about from friends or make up their own conclusions: My other child was about 5 years old and stated that she thought she should marry someone who had the same skin color she did. I asked her why she thought that, when we know many mommies and daddies who married someone with different skin color? She just said, "Oh, riiiiight".

If kids hear or just absorb something that seems like a "societal norm", it can influence their viewpoint, even if it goes completely counter to their own experiences. I remember as a kid I answered a survey about mothers working outside the home (it was the 70's), and I answered that I thought it was a BAD idea. I don't remember how long it took me, but eventually (days, weeks, years later?), I realized MY mom had always worked outside the home, and I thought it was completely fine. I wished I could go back and change my answers.

On the flip side of this are views like my mother's, who just the other night asked me if my son identifies as Jewish since we don't send him to Jewish camps/schools, we don't belong to a synagogue, we only peripherally participate in Jewish traditions at holiday time with my family, and hence he "doesn't have a Jewish group of friends to hang out with and doesn't have an 'identity'" (that last in her words).

In fact, several of his friends, including his closest one, are African American, and virtually none of his friends are Jewish. I have a hard time answering her, as I don't hold my Jewishness as something that has to be immersive or necessarily perpetuated in a prescribed manner the way she does. I grew up in that immersive Jewish world, and felt suffocated by it; I had to leave it in order to find my own way of "being Jewish", whatever that really means.

So how do we retain our sense of coming from a distinct culture while integrating with people from different cultures/backgrounds than our own, and is that even a worthy goal? I see all of our human traditions as constantly evolving over time along with everything else in the universe, and the notion that somehow these things can, never mind should, remain static makes little sense to me.

I hold onto our family heritage by passing on an understanding of the family history, and how we came to be where we currently are.

The goal in raising our kids shouldn't be to not see race. The goal should be to not see race/gender/sexual orientation/religion as something that defines a person.

sprout said:
I hold onto our family heritage by passing on an understanding of the family history, and how we came to be where we currently are.

Yes, this is more how I see it.

spontaneous said:
The goal in raising our kids shouldn't be to not see race. The goal should be to not see race/gender/sexual orientation/religion as something that defines a person.

Ha, tell that to my mother.

sprout said:
I hold onto our family heritage by passing on an understanding of the family history, and how we came to be where we currently are.

Exit 14?

Nobody has commented on whether most of the students in the posted pictures had red, brown, blond, or black hair; nor, did they comment on whether most of the students in those pictures had blue, green, hazel, violet, or brown eyes. Why do we as a society seem to pay so much more attention to skin color than we do to hair color or eye color?

Our children mimic us. If your social world is mainly interacting with people who look like you, how will your children learn to seek friendship outside of their comfort zone? My friends are a variety of races/ethnic groups/religions. My son sees the relationships I have with different people, and as a result, he too has friends that don't look like us.

Just because it appears students of the same race are grouped together doesn't mean there is any lack of anything. Just the simple fact that all these kids walk through the halls at the same time in the same small space, that they attend a prom together, that they are in one another's orbit, is more than a large percentage of the country ever experiences. But being in the same orbit extends too when you look at afterschool activities, where kids aren't just in proximity but are practicing, participating, performing, competing, working together. As someone said though, at the end of the day, many kids gravitate towards those they feel more comfortable with or have more in common with...why doesn't anyone ask why there aren't more prom pictures of nerds with jocks? Or wealthy kids with the kids who are eligible for free and reduced lunch? Doesn't the potential issues brought about by the wide range of socioeconomic diversity in our community (broader than our racial diversity) concern anyone?