Integration in America

Chicago is a famously segregated city. There are often sharp divides between neighborhoods. Devon feels like a completely different world than Wicker Park, which is the polar opposite of Pilsen. Every street in the city has its own culture and background. This is seen by many as a bad thing: when communities stay separate, there can be hostility between groups and the world views of members remain singular and biased. It is true that this country has a past riddled with oppressed groups that have had to struggle for their basic rights, and it is true that this discrimination still exists. But, having grown up in Logan Square, it was at first hard for me to believe that there are still such awful people because I see so little of them. I went to a diverse grammar school and go to a very diverse high school. One of the things that worries me the most about the future is that pretty much any college I decide to go to will have significantly bigger populations of only a few types of people. I have loved going to completely integrated schools. But by no means do I think that anything should change about the way Chicago neighborhoods work. You can go anywhere in the city and experience the culture and foods of every ethnicity. Though certain areas have residents of mostly one or two ethnicities, it isn't weird to see a white person in China Town or a black person in Greek Town. People can celebrate their own cultures and feel a sense of belonging in the places they live, while still being exposed to others. It's a win/win situation. The kids that get to go to schools other than their neighborhood school get to be exposed to this even earlier.
The only way to promote integration is to fight poverty. There are so many more white kids going to college and succeeding because there are more white families able to afford to live in nice neighborhoods and send their children to good schools. I may be biased, but Affirmative Action is unfair and counterproductive. If we really want to solve this problem, we need to go to its source, which is rooted in unbalanced racial class distributions.