Jalen Cerame

Mr. Yerkes

English 9

14 May 2019

Why De Facto Segregation Is Effective

Did you really believe that de facto segregation can spread racial diversity around

America? Being able to segregate with free choice is an effective strategy to spread racial

diversity. If people have the choice they will be able to make the choice that they want and not

live or be moved into a place they wouldn’t want to be in. Since racial diversity isn’t much of a

problem these days in contrast to America a few decades ago, de facto segregation should still be

considered a viable way to get races to mix in places.

There is no reason why having the choice to choose where you want to be is not an

effective strategy at becoming more racially diverse.

The first reason why segregation with free choice is an effective way at making places

racially diverse is in an article “The Trouble With Diversity” by Walter Benn Michaels. It states

in paragraph 2 “A world where some of us are black and some of us are white -- or bi-racial or

Native American or transgendered -- is a world where the differences between us present a

solution: appreciating our diversity.” It’s good that we can appreciate diversity in our

communities, knowing just how many of us there are in one place can make you wonder why are

there no problems between us?

Another reason for why de facto segregation is still effective at spreading racial diversity

is seen in a short section of the article called “Why Busing Didn’t End School Segregation”,
showing how forced busing due to the law had failed. It states “​One is the tremendous amount of

white flight that happens in cities like Boston, so there just simply aren't enough white students

to go around to have meaningful school desegregation.” Plus another piece in the article “The

other thing that happens is busing placed a tremendous burden on black students and on students

of color. In most cases, they were the ones that were asked to travel to the suburbs, travel

sometimes to hostile neighborhoods.” From these two reasons they show how difficult it was for

the programs to keep this need to segregate up. Why not just let the people adjust over time and

have it not be pushed together to get used to other colored people?

For a final reason why de facto segregation is still a positive way of shaping the diversity

in areas is in another article “How Seattle Gave Up on Busing and Allowed Its Public Schools to

Become Alarmingly Resegregated” by Sean Riley. Even though it’s an article about how

Seattle’s schools no longer being diverse they have an example that goes against forced

segregation. That example being the effect of forcing the need to even out races in schools back

in the 1970s, this effect is people gathering around the black students escorted to the white

schools. These onlookers who grouped up threw bottles and stones at the students being moved

to the white school. The Ku Klux Klan even blew up buses to prevent any further forced

segregation in schools, can you believe that? Who knows what would happen if we were to

introduce forced segregation again?

You may have your own point of view saying that de facto segregation is not effective

and the need of racial diversity is law to ensure the benefits of it can be put to full potential.

People who do have this perspective on this topic may say that the mix of races give them a

better and healthier life in the future for themselves. While true the costs for these are huge and
need to be acknowledged even if for the greater good, if not noticed then another problem will be

the lack of money after the forced segregation is executed. Besides just like many other places

over time the area will be shaped the way it wants to be shaped and there’s no need for forcing

and putting pressure on people.

In conclusion, there is no actual good way to solve the issue of needing forced

segregation without having some sort of problem. It’s better to leave races mix in places over

time and have residents not having to complain against law enforced segregation all over again

like how it was a few decades ago. The future should look relatively racially diverse since we

hopefully should have moved our problems aside and actually gave each other a chance.
 Work Cited:

Michaels, Walter Benn “The Trouble With Diversity” ​The American Prospect​, The

American Prospect, 13 August 2006, ​https://prospect.org/article/trouble-diversity

Cornish, Audie “Why Busing Didn’t End School Segregation” ​nprED​, 6 October 2016,

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/10/06/496411024/why-busing-didnt-end-school-segregatio

Riley, Sean “How Seattle Gave Up on Busing and Allowed Its Public Schools to Become

Alarmingly Resegregated” ​The Stranger,​ Index Newspapers LLC, 13 April 2016,

https://www.thestranger.com/features/2016/04/13/23945368/how-seattle-gave-up-on-busing-and

-allowed-its-public-schools-to-become-alarmingly-resegregated