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<p>I went to a middle school something like this. To hazard a guess, 40% White, 30% Black, 20% Hispanic, 10% Indian/Paki and Middle Eastern (a noticeably very large number, usually at least a couple in every class). No Asians I ever saw. It was not my experience that Whites and Blacks were ever friends. If you went to the cafeteria you’d see this pretty clearly. It never seemed that Whites and Blacks ever wanted to be friends, and if anything the integrated school seemed to cause more racial animosity than actual integration between students of different races. It wasn’t unusual for Whites and Indians to be friends, but I never saw any clique that ever had both a Black kid and a White kid. And it was very conscious thing. Whites did not like Blacks and Blacks did not like Whites, and neither liked the presence of the other. This seemed to be understood and accepted by everybody.</p>
<p>In comparison, I went to a high school which I would roughly guess was 65% White, 15% Asian, 10% Black, 10% everyone else. Seemed much more… peaceful. There’s obviously some self segregation between students, but it was never conscious to the level that it was in my middle school. It would not have been out of place to see a Black kid and a White kid socializing. </p>
<p>The conclusion I draw is that integration did my middle school no good, while my high school being dominated by 1 race did a lot more for it. Maybe it was just a factor of age, I don’t know. The high school was obviously in a wealthier area, but not a tremendous difference. But integration never did any apparent favors for the school or the students as far as I could see. </p>
<p>What was your kids’ experience in terms of this going from Middle School to High School to College? </p>