WE WANT to address it, but all we really do is dance around the issue at hand. When it comes to race relations, the University has yet to face the most fundamental, underlying truths about the question of race. A few times a year we exchange pleasantries across ethnic lines and promise to do more to combat separation between groups here at the University. But nothing really changes.
Forums like the one held last Wednesday on the state of race relations at the University are not new. This most recent forum was commendable for its use of hard statistical evidence. But the evidence told us what we already knew quite well: University students are divided along ethnic lines, primarily black and white, and while most wish this weren't the case, few people have a burning desire to make any sweeping changes in University culture.
Yet this is exactly what is necessary if there will be any notable changes in the degree of ethnic separation. There is one fundamental truth that we must address before any resolution will arrive to this dilemma: Students usually -- although not always -- form friendships with people of similar backgrounds, ethnic or otherwise. This is true whether it is in a college setting or not. The "background divide" is the real cause behind the social divide among black and white students. Until we address this factor, the race debate will simply keep spinning its wheels.
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This does not mean that people of different ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds can't form friendships; it just means that they usually don't. Think about your own circle of friends for a second while reading this column. How many friends do you have who come from a completely different ethnic or socioeconomic background from you? If the answer is zero, that's fine. There's no shame in not having any friends from a different walk of life. It merely proves the point that people tend to flock to wherever they are most comfortable.
This "flocking" tendency is the main culprit behind the gaping divide between black and white students. Of course, there are "self-separation" issues between all students, not just black and white ones. The University community should not discount the concerns of these students. But clearly, the most evident social breach at the University lies between white and black students. Given all the historical and economic factors at play, particularly in this part of the country, our efforts should concentrate on closing -- or at least narrowing -- this gap.
Naturally, in a new environment, people are bound to seek out a group of friends who they believe they can relate to. For better or worse -- probably both -- these groups of friends tend to form along racial lines. But as more Americans move up the economic ladder, and as the middle class takes on more shades of color, this old rule is breaking down.
Now, students tend to divide themselves along less obvious lines. We socialize with people who have something in common more in terms of economic standing than simple ethnicity. Some white students may feel more comfortable associating with black students, not because they don't like other white students, but because they happen to share a similar background with these particular black students.
By the same token, a black student may prefer to socialize on Rugby Road because he has more in common with the predominantly white, upper-middle class students that hang out there. Once again, it is not as if he doesn't like associating with students of the same ethnicity, he simply feels more comfortable in this other environment. It is not impossible for a black student from a working class Hampton neighborhood and a white student from an affluent Washington suburb to strike up a friendship. But it is unlikely. Why?
Because their backgrounds have very little in common. We tend to associate with people of similar backgrounds because, at 18 years old and beyond, we have pretty fixed notions about what our friends should be like, regardless of race.
While these forums on race are well intentioned, they continue to approach the question from the wrong angle. This debate over "self-separation" is not as simple as a perceived white-black divide. It ignores the role of 18-plus years of conditioning that every one of us has experienced prior to beginning at the University. Whether you grow up in a humble, blue-collar town in southeast Virginia or a wealthy neighborhood in Fairfax County has at least as much to do with whom you choose as friends as does the color of your skin.
The racial divide at the University is pronounced and persistent. But if we address the issue of students' background -- where we come from, our socioeconomic status, etc. -- we will finally come closer to finding a solution to what has become a significant dilemma.
(Timothy DuBoff's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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