Where Is The Beloved Community?

I teach at a middle school whose student body is about 98% African-American and about 96% economically disadvantaged.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Out of a total of about 550 students, there are around 540 black kids, maybe 7 white kids, 2 Latino kids, and 1 kid from India.

And just about every single one of them gets free or reduced lunch.

Our school is not alone. It's the same all over town and it's the same all over the country.

In sum, what that means is the our schools have been re-segregated. (Or, disintegrated if you want to go with the Word of the Day from a recent episode of The Colbert Report.)

And we wonder why our nation seems so divided these days!

If there are black schools and white ones, black parts of town and white ones, what do you think our dialogue will look like? If there are rich schools and poor ones, rich neighborhoods and poor ones, what do you think dialogue will look like? Will we even have dialogue?

We are, quite literally, divided. And, until we can live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same schools, and sit down at the table with one another - until then we will continue to have the problems we have today.

I was thinking about this, especially the part on race, over the past week. Many people, black and white, fought hard to integrate our schools. Many suffered acts of violence and some even death. And here we are today, a decade into the 21st century, with our schools more segregated than they were at the time Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. It's something I've thought about before, but Monday's holiday, celebrating the life of Dr. King, was the spark for this post.

Quite simply, we need to be exposed to those who are not like us in school, if nowhere else, because those experiences will shape how see the world as we grow up.

If I don't have any personal experience about a topic, there's a good chance that I'll believe - or at least be influenced by - whatever I hear from friends or through the media. When I watch the local news, I see a bunch of stories about crime and a good many of them involve African-American men. Now, that doesn't influence my perception of African-American men because I know plenty of African-American men who are not criminals. However, I know a lot of white folks who don't know any black folks personally. And, when they watch the news, they are convinced that all African-Americans are criminals. That's ridiculous, but a vacuum will be filled and that's what happens when we lack personal experience and interaction.

My family didn't have any black friends when I was growing up. But I was fortunate enough to attend diverse schools. One side of town was mostly white, while the other side of town was mostly black. The student bodies at those schools reflected this dynamic. We lived - and went to school - in the middle, so our schools were pretty diverse, even if our neighborhoods were not. As a result, I was exposed to the African-American community in a way I would not have been otherwise and I developed friendships with (and the occasional crush on) those who did not look like me. I am thankful for this experience today, for it has shaped the way I see the world.

This is what our city is lacking. This is what our nation is missing. This is what we need.
White kids need to grow up around black kids and black kids need to grow up around white kids.

It's as simple as that.

And it all starts in school.