Lunchroom integration brings mixed results

The Herald-Sun ^ | Nov 18, 2003 | MICHAEL PETROCELLI

[July 4th]

a national event called Mix It Up at Lunch

People has best be careful how they go about implementing this event, as "Mix It Up" lunch could turn into a real "mixing it up."

[cinFLA]

"Mexicans and blacks don't have anything to talk about," said McDow, who sat with other black students. "Most of the blacks and whites don't have anything to talk about."

This tells it all.

[WackyKat]

They could always discuss "diversity"

[GATOR NAVY]

Or "tolerance"

[cyborg]

Well if I am to believe the cut rate education being dished out in most public schools, OF COURSE they wouldn't have anything to talk about. I thought that since libs ran the public schools, it would be a paradise of peace, love and good will.

Seriously, I went to Catholics schools and have NEVER seen this problem at all. Why is it in private schools this is not a problem apparently? I also went to probably the most exclusive school on Long Island, very very rich and snotty. There was ONE black kid in the whole school, and everyone went out of their way to make him feel comfortable. Actually thinking about it, the only difference between him and everyone else was just melanin.

I've never had a problem sitting with anyone. What is everyone else's problem???

[oyez]

Principal John Colclough said he thinks the students at Northern relate well across racial and ethnic lines for most of the school day

They also have the same crappy music in common.

[Riverman94610]

Except that the statement is blatantly false.I work part time in a school that is almost equally divided among blacks and Mexicans.There was significant conflict years ago but things have settled down and there is way more amity than drama.
It is fashionable among many of the posters here to be cynical about integrated environments and I will be the first to admit cultural differences CAN have negative side effects but lets give credit to those kids who understand they have way more in common than what divides them.

[Mo1]

"People are just afraid to talk to other races because of things that happened in the past," said Webb, who is black.

I don't think it about what happened in the past .. but rather what is happening in the present

It's been over 20 years .. however, the school I went to had blacks, whites, asians & hispanics .. yes there were cliques .. but we also didn't need people to tell us to mix it up .. they already were

[Pedantic_Lady]

I went to high school 1989-1993, and the situation at my H.S. was pretty much the same. You did have groups of friends that contained people of various races, but for the most part the blacks stuck with the blacks, hispanics with hispanics, whites with whites. I had my own little band of friends...there were 10 of us. 6 were white, 2 were Arab, 1 was black, 1 was hispanic. We got together on our own without anyone telling us to. I'd be insulted if someone had told me to "mix it up."

[Holly_P]

I can hang out with kids who have Mohawks, or cornrows or skinheads, but at lunch, I want to sit with my friends

Sounds like they are segregated by hair style.

[iconoclast]

but that there remains a "barrier" each day at lunch.

The "barrier" is each individual student's freedom of choice.

This is simply one more blatant and silly example of social engineering and one more instance of our so called education system acting out their distraction from their legitimate goal.

[gunnedah]

Social Engineering!People have a tendancy to hang out with those that are like minded, that is just a fact of life.
For all who think diversity is so great look at all the warring factions in the world and ask yourself what is the one great denominator.

[wildhillbilly]

However, for at least one lunch hour Tuesday, a group of students tried to break up that self-segregation as part of a national event called Mix It Up at Lunch. The event is promoted by Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Students in each of Northern's two lunch periods were asked to voluntarily submit to randomly assigned lunch tables in hopes of prying open the tight grip that cliques, both racial and otherwise, can have in high school.

Anything the SPLC is involved in is no good.

[opbuzz]

At Quantico HS in 1969(a USMC DOD school), the lunchroom was totally integrated. Of course, it only had 500 students in 7th-12th grades.

The most obviously segregated tables were the athletes, but those were integrated also, and separate only because of affiliation.

By the way. At Quantico, if you received any grade lower than a C, you were not allowed to participate in ANY extraurricular activities,ie; sports, cheerleading, chess club, school paper,etc.

[bird4four4]

"People are just afraid to talk to other races because of things that happened in the past," said Webb, who is black.

People are afraid to talk, because they are afraid they might 'offend' someone or some culture and be expelled for a week. That's what the PC idiots have brought us to. They help create the very thing they are trying to squelch.

[Mo1]

They help create the very thing they are trying to squelch.

I agree .. but I also think that is what they wanted to happen

Cause more of a riff

[bird4four4]

True. Divide and conquer, is a political strategy of the left.

[Mo1]

If we were united .. Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton would be out of a job.

Don't get me wrong .. there is still a long way to go between races .. but the left is not helping matters in my opinion

[xrp]

Northern's student body is 50 percent black, 42 percent white and 4 percent Hispanic

4% of the student body is unaccounted for or the author didn't care to mention their ethnicity because white, black and brown are the only ethnicities the liberal new media wants to try to set against each other.