Discussion questions - Article Example

Solid examples of segregation can be seen on a daily basis within all school campuses across the country. Although integration is encouraged by the school administration, the students still tend to group themselves according to race and skin color. As we all know, Asian students have all their clubs and organizations, as do the African American, and Middle Eastern students of any given school. Although segregation does exist on these campuses, class does not seem to be an issue for them. Most likely because as people in a foreign land or being one of the few colored people on campus, their tendency is to forgo class divisions in favor of building friendships, companionship, and protection for themselves in a land or campus that they consider strange.

Therefore, it is highly possible to disentangle race and class from one another due to the existence of segregation in a given social setting. I do not approve of the government promoting economic diversity in communities through deconcentration of poverty and mobility programs. While I agree that the government must support the desire of the lower financial bracket to advance themselves, advancing them into communities before they are actually ready to become a part of it has disastrous results.

Just because the government subsidizes a group of individuals does not mean that the individuals are ready to be part of that community and can do their part. I make these claims based upon the results of the Gautreaux plaintiffs whose forced move to the suburbs resulted in a program that was small, finite, and slow to move families, relying on existing housing, voluntary landlord compliance, and the willingness and ability of individual black families to relocate to the suburbs. 1 While the government integration plans seem feasible on paper, it may work with disastrous results in real life.

This then creates a chain reaction of negative effects upon the community the integration was supposed to help. BibliographyGill, Andrea M.K. “Moving to Integration? The Origins of Chicagos Gautreux. Program and the Limits of Voucher Based Housing Mobility.” Journal of Urban History, 3B, No. 4 (2012) : 662