Why did we segregate people??? (CNN, school, education, Illinois)

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Sundance

Stop blaming everything on white people. Asians, blacks, aside from any economic factors, would group together anyway.

The "melting pot" theory was obviously just that; a theory. Forced integration was tried, and it was unsuccessful.

But they don't.
I grew up in a mixed area. Look around, they are everywhere. The melting pot is not only a theory. Where I grew up there were Americans of all shapes, sizes, colors, and elasticities interacting.
Whites ran the country, so of course any racial and ethnic issues are largely due to them. If blacks ran the country then I could say the reverse. I'm not blaming current problems on white people. I'm blaming past ones. As for today, Hispanics and east and south Asians that have lived in the US for a few generations aren't so much groups together.
Blacks have a special legacy. You can't expect so many years of racial inequality to dissipate after just a few decades since the end of legal segregation.
Perhaps you live in an especially problematic area. Perhaps you choose to see the segregation more than the integration. Either way, I'm sorry. But you are wrong when you say that America is not good at integration. It is actually quite good.

[BRAZILIAN]

In my opinion, any kind of prejudice or racism, is the ultimate expression of human stupidity.
I can not understand why people are segregated because their color, social status, economic status, etc...

[jertheber]

Social class was a real divider in the days of old England. Social segregation was the norm back then, even though they didn't have the racial divisions they certainly had their own separate class system.

The evidence exists of a particular poor attitude on the part of the plantation owner, with regard to his white slaves, he had paid little for them, as opposed to the much higher price he would be paying for the Black slaves. This bit of history covers a little known fact of the white man on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, he was cheap labor, and thus used up much quicker.

Before the days of social enlightenment there was no inclination on the slave owners part to guard the blacks too closely, it wasn't until the blacks had an advocate in the form of the more astute Christians that the owner class got worried. Low class whites were certainly not welcome in the circles of power, nor were they invited to any "public" forums that addressed the political concerns of the day.

Unable to vote, and too poor to own land, the poor whites went about their lives as a kind of chattel, one notch above the boughten slave, he was indentured for a contractual period of years, worked half to death, he could finally be free at the end of his time, only to be socially and economically segregated.

The primary reason for racial segregation was the fear that low class whites and black slaves might just team up and overthrow the planter class. The whites were also give the overseer jobs that gave them some elevated status over the slaves, the antagonistic scenario was a contrived one, it served it's purpose, divided, the poor could never get a leg up on the rich man, kind of like the situation we're in today..........

[rhawkins74]

Originally Posted by Sundance

I think it's natural for people to want to be with their own kind. That's just the way people are. There's Chinatown, Italian neighborhoods, and so on. Black people stay together.

The only time it's perceived as "wrong" is when it's white people doing it. It's okay for everyone else, we're just not supposed to want to do it.

I really don't care what other people think, I'd rather be with my own kind, which means white people....

I'll save you the trouble:

"You're racist!"

I don't care what anyone else thinks, if it's ok for blacks to do, it's ok for whites to do. Now what....

One issue that your seem to not even consider is that many of times, these ethnically segregated areas are in place not because the people that live there want it that way, rather because people don't want to move there out of fear.

Take for example, the town I grew up in was a small farm town in central Illinois. It was predominantly white. When I would say something to black people about checking it out as a town to move to, many would say NO, due to the fact they believed that it had to be a racist town. Now I live in a black neighborhood on the southside of Chicago, and many non-black people say they don't want to move here because they fear that it won't be safe or people will not accept them because they are of a different ethnic background. While in neither of these situations was the fear correct in it's belief it was the fear that kept the segregation alive, not the want for segregation.

BTW alot of the "Black Communities" are that way not because that was the intention of the black residents, but rather because of something that is commonly known as "white flight"

[Starlady01]

I remember blacks being send to our schools and they didn't like it at all.

I think people perfer to be with people of their out race period. I know the government is big on tring to bring whites black Spanish ect together and it's a desaster in my opinion. I use to live in goverment apartments and the lady that ran the place would group spanish, whites and blacks together and she was black. She said she did this to make each one feel more at home in the their eviroment.

I know that Germans seek out other Germans once they come to America and so do other people of different back grounds. To my understand the great busing of blacks to white schools were a huge disappointment most of the blacks didn't want to be their and I'm sure their were whites who didn't want them there, but I never heard of a white person complaining.

I mean it like they mean good yes but it goes against normal ways of how people are.

I think it became an issure because of the segratation of the past and now it need to just go away and let people be who they really are.

I mean even Obama's mother knew this and had her son study about black culcure and the likes. Yes blacks also buy into it not just other races but the blacks got the short end of the stick on this one with the segration that went on after slavery and it needs to go away and just let them be who they are.

So lets stop tring to segregation and start letting them be whom they are I mean we have china town in America why because they seek to be with each other the same with Miami. Not only do whites push this to show they ain't against black the blacks can be just as quilt it's a two way street that need to stop. The real segration is when we push them to live outside their own inviroments.

[nicet4]

Originally Posted by iColt1

So in English we were discussing Martin Luther King. His speech "I have a dream" he said that in the Declaration of Independence that all people made equal. If so then why did we segregate a black from a white since we have no control over the color of our skin; since it's a pigment in the skin that causes us to be a certain color. actually if this is true then we should never have had a civil war.

I suppose they teach you in school the civil war was fought to free slaves?

I'm willing to bet you were taught Lincoln freed all the slaves with the emancipation proclamation, right?

The Old South: Images and Realities (http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=653 - broken link)

The white South’s social structure was much more complex than the popular stereotype of proud aristocrats disdainful of honest work and ignorant, vicious, exploited poor whites. The old South’s intricate social structure included many small slaveowners and relatively few large ones.

Large slaveholders were extremely rare. In 1860 only 11,000 Southerners, three-quarters of one percent of the white population owned more than 50 slaves; a mere 2,358 owned as many as 100 slaves. However, although large slaveholders were few in number, they owned most of the South’s slaves. Over half of all slaves lived on plantations with 20 or more slaves and a quarter lived on plantations with more than 50 slaves.

Slave ownership was relatively widespread. In the first half of the 19th century, one-third of all southern white families owned slaves, and a majority of white southern families either owned slaves, had owned them, or expected to own them. These slaveowners were a diverse lot. A few were African American, mulatto, or Native American; one-tenth were women; and more than one in ten worked as artisans, businesspeople, or merchants rather than as farmers or planters. Few led lives of leisure or refinement.

You get the part where some slave owners were black?

While one third of all southern white families owned at least one slave two thirds didn't own any slaves at all and I find it hard to believe millions of southerners were willing to send their sons off to die in a war so their rich neighbors could keep their slaves.

Equally preposterous is the idea millions of white northerners would send their sons off to die in a war to free slaves. This would be like me sending my son off to war so you could continue to drive your camaro.

So that you learn something.

The 13th amendment was ratifed in december of 1865 freeing all slaves in the united states and its' territories


Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 was a powerful move that promised freedom for slaves in the Confederacy as soon as the Union armies reached them, and authorized the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves in the Union-allied slave-holding states that bordered the Confederacy. Since the Confederate States did not recognize the authority of President Lincoln, and the proclamation did not apply in the border states, at first the proclamation freed only slaves who had escaped behind Union lines. Still, the proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal that was implemented as the Union took territory from the Confederacy. According to the Census of 1860, this policy would free nearly four million slaves, or over 12% of the total population of the United States. There still were over 250,000 slaves in Texas. Word did not reach Texas about the collapse of the Confederacy until June 19, 1865. African Americans and others celebrate that day as Juneteenth, the day of freedom, in Texas, Oklahoma and some other states. It commemorates the date when the news finally reached slaves at Galveston, Texas. Legally, the last 40,000 or so slaves were freed in Kentucky by the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December 1865. Slaves still held in New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri and Washington, D.C. also became legally free on this date eight months after the civil war ended.

Lincoln's Speech at Peoria, Illinois
October 16, 1854

"Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not."

[Lycanmaster]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

But they don't.
I grew up in a mixed area. Look around, they are everywhere. The melting pot is not only a theory. Where I grew up there were Americans of all shapes, sizes, colors, and elasticities interacting.
Whites ran the country, so of course any racial and ethnic issues are largely due to them. If blacks ran the country then I could say the reverse. I'm not blaming current problems on white people. I'm blaming past ones. As for today, Hispanics and east and south Asians that have lived in the US for a few generations aren't so much groups together.
Blacks have a special legacy. You can't expect so many years of racial inequality to dissipate after just a few decades since the end of legal segregation.
Perhaps you live in an especially problematic area. Perhaps you choose to see the segregation more than the integration. Either way, I'm sorry. But you are wrong when you say that America is not good at integration. It is actually quite good.

Unfortunately, I'd say your neighborhood is more the exception than the norm. Even in schools, neighborhoods where you see lots of different races, integration is often "surface level" at best...

[ovcatto]

Originally Posted by iColt1

If so then why did we segregate a black from a white since we have no control over the color of our skin; since it's a pigment in the skin that causes us to be a certain color. actually if this is true then we should never have had a civil war.

Because it was infinitely profitable to do so.

Segregation did not begin over night but was the result of an ever increasing significance of slavery as a tool for economic growth. To justify the distinction between indentured laborers (those who could be awarded their freedom after a period of time) and those who would be kept in a condition of chattel slavey and entire psuedo-scientific rational was developed, starting with the first slave codes in the early 17th century. This endured and thrived through out the antebellum era prior to emancipation.

With end of the Civil War and the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments the very economic structure of the South was threatened by emancipation of the former slaves. The only way to maintain economic superiority was to place African American's in a subservient role, to do that the continued designation of people of color as a lessor sort of human was a evil necessity.

[Lucario]

Originally Posted by Memphis1979

You don't see several members of the same species living together. Gorillas don't live with Chimps, Chimps don't live with Orangatans, they seperate, divide, and become something new.

None of these are the same species..............

[JD1974]

Originally Posted by iColt1

So in English we were discussing Martin Luther King. His speech "I have a dream" he said that in the Declaration of Independence that all people made equal. If so then why did we segregate a black from a white since we have no control over the color of our skin; since it's a pigment in the skin that causes us to be a certain color. actually if this is true then we should never have had a civil war.

the founding fathers saw blacks as only 3/5 of a person what they wrote set the stage for the next 150yrs.