Racial Tensions in My
High School
Every week
is a very interesting topic that we cover in class. These weeks’ topics they
have been based on the book American Apartheid by Douglas S. Massey and Nancy
A. Denton. Segregation is a very tricky subject to discuss it is something that
every one is aware of, but nobody wants to acknowledge it. Chicago is known as
one of the most segregated cities in the United States. In this section of the
blog I will mention how I have experienced and lived segregation in my high
school.
I attended Little
Village High School. A high school that was formed after a hunger strike that
had lasted 19 days. This high school was promised beforehand but was on hold
due to monetary issues. Four years later Little Village High School was opened
in 2005. I entered my freshman year of high school in 2006, and it was a
cultural change for everyone. Students from North Lawndale who were
predominantly black travel into South Lawndale (Little Village) to go to
school. It was a change that no one was prepared for. Now that we discuss these
types of issues it makes me understand how ignorant we are. In the first few couple of months their
existed a big racial tensions between Black’s and Mexicans. There were many
scenarios that went in play, which I hoped I had intervened or at least had
spoken up. My high school felt a lot like the city of Chicago when it came down
to eating lunch. The biggest segregation was at lunchtime when one side of the
cafeteria was black and the other side was Mexican. It was rare to see any
interaction between the two races in the cafeteria. Tensions grew in my high
school to the point that there was a race war. It all started when a couple of
kids jumped a black kid outside of high school. That obviously brought retribution
and it started a chain of events in the high school. Couple of my friends
became victims of this race violence. This violence created a sense of
unification with your race. It was basically you either stayed with your race,
or you where looked frowned upon on if you socialize with the other race. These
tensions rose so quickly and dangerous that it got to the point where the whole
administration of the school and Chicago Police Department had to get involved.
It was sad
to see the incline of violence and tension between both races. It got to the
point that you felt unsafe to walk to your house due to the fear of getting
jumped by either a different race or gang. Something that I now ask myself, why
did we let this tension grow? Instead of trying to repair it we worsened it by
our actions. A lot of the reasons of why these tensions grew was because the
environment that we were in. Now that I think about it and look back the school
administration took the easy way out and blamed this tension on gang related
issues instead of finding the root of the problem.
They would
just suspend or expelled the students that were causing problems. But no action
was taken; it wasn’t after the end of the school year when the school
administration got involved with the problem. We stopped classes for at least 3
days and had nothing but workshops and assembly presentations or talk about
racial tension. They broke us down into small groups to talk and try to explain
how did all of this initiated. Now that I think about it half of the people
weren’t aware why was their tension to begin with. They just followed what the
rest was doing. When we had these discussions it was interesting on what the
students answers would be why wouldn’t they try and intervene. The most
shocking answer to me was because it was, “revenge” when their close friends
had been jumped. The answered of these
students would be that their friends were victims. So when they saw someone
being picked on or being jumped by another race they wouldn’t say anything.
They would just walk away, as if nothing had happened. They would have the
mentality as “they deserve” for what happen to my friend.
For me high
school was a learning period where I was first presented to interact with other
people other than my own race. In this past Thursday discussion we talked about
how people tended to stay within their own race. Most of the people stick within
their own race because it is where some they feel comfortable and at times we
hate the change of our environment.
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