Self-segregation is a fact of life. Everywhere you turn, it stares back at you, in the dormitories, on Locust Walk, in lecture halls and at parties.
The word itself has such a negative connotation, but is it really so bad? Is it the evil we think it is?
Self-segregation is a natural phenomenon. People are drawn to others with similar interests and experiences because these things build solidarity. Exclusiveness is a necessary condition for the existence of any community -- self-segregation must be present whenever there are three or more people in a given setting.
Still, many of us consider it a bad thing, because it generally connotes separation by race and ethnicity, rather than by interest or other similarity. After all, it runs counter to diversity. And diversity is good, isn't it?
Commonplace as this argument is, it's not very thoughtful. A diverse and pluralistic society requires that many groups, whose members share some kind of similarity, exist as separate and distinct entities. Simply put, an ethnically diverse community is one that must be full of racially and ethnically self-segregated groups. Think of a mixed salad instead of the melting pot, if you will.
Self-segregated groups also provide support for their members. After all, DuBois College House was created after a relatively large influx of black students came to Penn following the Civil Rights movement in the '60s to provide support for black students who, at other universities, were struggling to make it on their own and to empower their own community.
Unfortunately, retaining enough of a racial or ethnic group's identity is not the problem on our campus. I mean, do we really mean to promote equality and understanding when we celebrate our diversity through self-segregation?
Many student groups on campus don't spread as much "awareness" about their cultures as they promote intra-group networks at the expense of expanding the social capital of its members outside their racial or ethnic community.
Social scientists may argue that a higher level of trust within racially or ethnically homogenous groups is a positive thing for the group. But doesn't this high level of trust within come at the expense of very low levels of trust in inter-ethnic interactions -- a lack of trust largely responsible for the countless atrocities we see around the world?
On our campus, I ask if promoting difference has really led to an embrace of diversity or a common "Penn" identity instead of fragmenting our student body along racial and ethnic lines.
Of course, self-segregation is a fact of life, much larger than the phenomenon seen on this campus. But should we continue to be a part of the problem instead of trying to fix it?
So much of our social interaction takes place outside the classroom and in the realm of "student life." If you look at the list of student group homepages on Penn's Web site, you'll see that we don't have a White Students Association even though ethnic minorities constitute approximately 40 percent of the undergraduate population. We do, however, have a student association for pretty much every other race and ethnicity on campus. It upsets me to see minority students wall themselves up in "culturally-themed" organizations and disengaging themselves from the affairs of the larger student body.
We have a United Minorities Council that "serves as an inter-racial alliance to address the issues of people of color in the University of Pennsylvania community."
You might be thinking, "well, people of color are comprised of many different groups and would be outnumbered singly by the large white population on campus." But even this is still stronger proof of my point -- we need to stop thinking so much along the lines of race and ethnicity.
It's true that this kind of color-blind rhetoric is exactly what the elite class has employed throughout American history to maintain the status quo of inequality. Many scholars would argue that color-consciousness is necessary to improve the lot of those belonging to an underprivileged minority.
However, I can't accept promoting an inherently flawed premise that color-consciousness cannot be overcome in the long run. If we embrace our differences, we would be reinforcing color barriers and alienating racial and ethnic groups from each other.
This is why the NAACP threatened to sue the University before the inception of DuBois in 1972, which was also opposed vehemently by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Although it may be difficult, how can we not work toward a Utopian society where skin color, like eye color, does not matter?
Still, hard as this may be to achieve, I simply can't shake this dream. Yes, I have a dream....
Jooho Lee is a junior History and Political Science major from Los Angeles, Calif.
