I’ve never been big on listening in on poeple’s conversations, especially since I have an iPod and pretty much ignore the rest of society on my trek from the parking lot 3 and a half blocks away to my building. I get to hear the Lamentation of ZhaoJun (one of the four beauties of China, mind you) on my way. Today must have been a weird one, because I paused my iPod because my cell phone vibrated in my jacket pocket. I wasn’t expecting a call, but it could have been important; however, I wasn’t counting on that either. Turns out that the person who called must have dialed the wrong number because they hung up. In passing, this exchange catches my ear between a wheelchair bound man and the female pushing him.
“Hey sister.” the greeting was ignored by the passer-by.
“That’s just rude.” the man in the wheelchair says to his female companion.
“Maybe she’s busy and on her way somewhere?” came the retort.
“That’s no reason to ignore a brother greeting a sister.” I missed the rest of the conversation as I was hitting play on my iPod and continuing down the hall.
This exchange was between two black people. The woman that this man had said ‘hey’ to was also black. It just brought back to mind the situations I faced both in my neighborhood and in high school. People self segregate. When I was in high school, the blacks (all six of us) sat at the same table. Whites didn’t sit at our table. The four or five vietnamese girls that were at the school preparing for cloistering were also at their own table. Whites didn’t sit with them either. The whites took up the entire cafeteria, but they never sat at either of those tables.
In my neighborhood it was the same. White kids stayed with white kids and black kids stayed with black kids and they were really only forced upon one another if their parents were friends or solving some altercation between the children. This was pretty rare in and of itself, because in my neighborhood problems were solved on the streets. This usually involved gang violence of some sort.
I don’t think even in places where we are in general forced to integrate on at least a superficial level that anyone is too terribly comfortable unless they can expand their view of what they have in common with others. I mean, outside of being human, I’m of the opinion you don’t need much else; however, humanists apparently are in the minority.
