America likes to advertise itself as a “melting pot” and perhaps it is, on certain levels, and on a really good day. Yet, the real America that most of us deal with day by day isn’t a melting pot at all; it isn’t truly integrated, it isn’t fair, and it isn’t doing much to change the status of the fact that those that have, not only live lives that are completely different from the general population, but are also, typically, completely segregated from them. Perhaps that is why, so many at the top of the food chain, don’t seem to recognize exactly how segregated and ingrained in that segregation that America really represents, and therefore don’t bother to do anything of substance to ameliorate such, or find it inimical to their own interests to address it.
While it is true, that America is a less segregated country than it was back before the turn of the 20th century, that isn’t really saying a lot; especially, in consideration that one of the most seminal decisions by the Supreme Court addressing that segregation in regards to public schools, of Brown v. The Board of Education, was settled way back in 1954. Not only was that Supreme Court decision, seemingly irrelevant in the sense that today’s public schools still suffer from a high degree of segregation as well as unequalness, but also this fairly reflects that the communities that surround a given public school are themselves, segregated; thereby signifying that in the absence of busing school kids from one school district to another, that Supreme Court decision or not, pretty much all is the same as it was, before 1954.
The reason why America remains so segregated has a lot to do with two factors, of which the first is the wealth/income disparity in which those that are the favored race have considerably more monies than those that have historically been discriminated against, thereby permitting those with wealth, to live in havens of exclusivity. Secondly, the structure of many cities has historically contained covenants, precluding the residency of certain unfavored races, and the inclusion of only that of the favored race; and though this was effectively overturned by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, it has to be taken into account, that most people when they decide that they so want to purchase a given home, are almost never wanting to select a place in which by simply moving there, this will cause them personal grief and/or trouble.
All of the above essentially means that the locale of where a given family lives, without even knowing their name, or their background, permits those that know the demographics of a given city through its zip code or through its community name, as to whether or not, these particular people, in sum, have money or not, and whether they are, in sum, the favored race or not; which thereby permits those of the policing arm of the state to concentrate, if they so desire, on certain communities as the ones to enforce their law and order, without explicitly ever having to mention race or degree of income. Further, because of such segregation, there are plenty of people, that live and play in communities in which everything just seems fair and right; whereas, on the other side of the great divide, there are those other communities in which everything just seems foul and wrong.