How far have we really come?

historyking.com

Last semester I took Intro to the City, an urban studies class about how cities grow and develop. We watched one of those Dateline special news type shows about how blacks are still treated differently than whites, despite how far people believe we've come since segregation. We saw a white man try to buy a car and he was immediately offered a deal of $5,000, but then later a black man talked to the same salesmen and was told the same car was $8,000--no deals offered. We also saw a black man try to rent an apartment from an elderly white couple and he was told the apartment was already rented out. But then later a white man tried to rent the same apartment from the same couple and was gladly shown a tour of the apartment. Even at Witt, there is a feel of segregation between the black and white students. If you look around the CDR, you will usually notice a few tables of only black students, and then whole tables of only white students. There isn't much variety among friend groups on campus. Also, there is a whole club called Concerned Black Students. Why couldn't it just be called Concerned Students? If we want segregation to end, we need to start doing things together, instead of in separate groups. These examples just help to show that, despite what people may think, society really hasn't come that far since the days of segregation. No matter what, there will always be those few people that still believe blacks are inferior to whites, and the only thing we can do is to continue to educate those people and hope they eventually change their thinking.