Interracial Relationships In Schools

Someone on the street is walking towards you, their skin, hair, and even the way they dress is different from you. So what do you do? You draw a line. This line separates you and them. This is called in and out grouping, where there is an in group (usually inclusive of yourself) and an out group or the “them” people. While most people will say they withhold judgement from first looks, it's what we as Americans are taught from birth to draw these lines that makes us different from others.Even though racism and prejudice still exists, with regards racial lines, we have made progress in the direction of “blurring” these lines as those in our society have dropped them in interracial relationships, in the naming of out groups, and at school.
An interracial relationship can be defined as a union between two people of two different ethnic or racial backgrounds. This represents progress in American culture because at one point such relationships were illegal, such as an African slave and white colonial woman together in 17th century British-American colonies. Most likely
both would have been killed over that relationship. Even today these lines still exist in households of the “Bible belt” or Southern America where interracial relationships are not illegal, however, still looked down upon if you're with someone of the “out” group. But these lines are blurring as nearly 10% of all marriage households are interracial, according to U.S. census data. Even the number of interethnic children born after 2010 in America has increased from 5 to 7 percent for children in America. Evidently a good number of people are dropping these distinctions as reasons to not be with someone different from themselves. But how do we label them?
The names that are assigned to an ethnicity can indicate the boldness of the line that separates them from the rest of society. These lines have also dimmed over time as they have moved away from describing and ethnicity and more so describing a social group. Take African Americans for example, they have been called negroes, colored, niggers, and most recently blacks. Negroes and colored both exemplify a description of the African-American ethnicity, however, niggers, in today's meaning, mainly is referring to a poor African-American or one who demonstrates African-American Stereotypes heavily. “...point is that none of us really know who we are, ancestrally speaking. All we ever really know is what our parents and Grandparents have told us.” (Staples) and yet we assign names to these groups without real evidence of them being different other than their skin color. It is evident that our society is moving away from such sharp distinctions and even though racism still exists, it has lessened over time. Why? Well it starts with the youth.
School is a microcosm of every aspect of American culture.
It represents variety, conflict, bureaucracy, and aspiration similar to that of the American dream. It is where the lines are draw on paper and in between people, however, the evolution of school since the early 20th century also demonstrates a lessening of social discrimination based on class, race, gender identity, or even now sexuality. Thus the lines are still there, but disappearing and it started mainly in Little Rock, Alabama where martial law forced school integration created the first generation of kids that would have grown up along side all ethnicities. Even today with mixed or biracial children and “Barack obama to be biracial” (Chang) demonstrates the effectiveness of integration in public school systems in convincing kids of their similarities with other kids rather than the differences they have been taught by the past
generation.
The ultimate goal for our society is to completely eliminate these lines of distinction. Yes, we should try to be unique, but also embrace the different instead of grouping and categorizing everyone. It is essential that we recognize what makes us different but not let that separate us. If people understand this notion, then as a society we will continue to progress towards the complete elimination of those lines drawn by our ancestors.