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Monday, February 19, 2007

Virtual Integration

It's February and it's time for our annual salute to Black History. As I've written in this space before, I utterly detest Black History Month! It's a contrivance for the dominant white elite , so that they can tell themselves, "Hey, I ain't no bigot".

The media has really bought in to this supposed celebration of all things Black. Despite the fact we live in a predominantly segregated society (and it's growing worse), you'd never know it by watching TV commercials.

Regardless of the product or brand, we so often see blacks and whites together in all sorts of situations and circumstances. There they are smiling, laughing and supporting the product of choice.

Oh Golly yes, they're our pals and buddies. We eat with them. We go places with them. We even party with them.

Yet, in real life, we don't live near them and we get nervous if we happen to see one or more of them driving around our neighborhoods. They must be up to no good, we think, as we frantically dial 9-1-1.

I live in an area where there are few Blacks -- less than 5% of the county population. Our chief minority groups are Latinos, Koreans and Indians. For the most part, they live in certain parts of town away from the white majority.

I live in one of the few integrated areas. Most of my neighbors are Latino and our next door neighbors are Mexican. We get along with them fine, though there is somewhat of a language barrier as both parents speak little English and my Spanish skills have waned since college. Most of our communications are through their 8 year old daughter who is bilingual.

Actually, there are lots of white people who live near racial or ethnic minorities. It's not that many of them want to live next door to a Black or Latino family, it's just that they're poor and, when you don't have the financial means to be exclusive, you take what you can get.

All in all, I relish the day when we don't need to single out a racial or ethnic group to celebrate "their" history -- while it gets ignored the rest of the year -- and the integration we see played out in the make-believe world of television is truly played out in the real world.

We're each part of the same universal reality. It sure would be nice if acted like it.

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