Apartheid. USA 1988

March 30, 1987:

New Rochelle, a city on Long Island Sound has 70 000 residents. Eighteen percent are black. The Mayor, however, is white, as are all the City Council members. Two blacks sit in the nine-member Board of Education. Black families, members of a growing black upper-middle-class here, have moved into the city's wealthy - and predominantly white - northern neighborhoods. The majority of blacks, however, still live in the more urban center city - loosely included in the part of town known as the South Side. Here are the housing projects with a working class population of Italian, Irish and Polish heritage. At the High School students say that not only race, but also geography, economic class and family background determine their friendships and varying academic successes. Students generally adhere to the city's

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north-south division in their daily activities. Many students from the North End drive to school, some in Trans Am's and BMWs, while those from the South Side are more likely to walk or take the bus. Also, most of the racially mixed friendships - ones that go beyond the school walls - are among blacks and whites from the North End. Students say upper-middle-class blacks from the North End rarely form close friendships with lower-middle-class blacks from the South Side. ‘Blacks in the North End are foreign to us,’ said Craig Merritt. ‘They live in a white area.’

The New Rochelle High School is not a perfect world of racial harmony. At most tables in the cafeteria, blacks sit with blacks, whites with whites. ‘New Rochelle is not utopia,’ said Dr James Gaddy, who last year became New Rochelle's first black school superintendent. ‘New Rochelle High is a desegregated school, but I am not sure if it fulfills the ideal of an integrated school. I am not sure the ideal of an integrated school exists in our country today.’^74. John F Kennedy High School consists of a modern red-brick building in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, New York. The school is remarkably representative of the racial and ethnic composition of the city's public school system. The school record lists nearly half of those enrolled as Hispanic, 30 percent as black, 20 percent as white and 3 percent as Asian. The senior portraits in the Year Book suggest a success story of racial and ethnic unity: hundreds of young adults, black and white, Hispanic and Asian - smiling and confident, side by side. But wander down the halls, or drop into a classroom or two where there are after-school activities or take in a basketball game, and you find a student body fragmented, as if by some historical centrifuge.

Hispanic students seem to congregate in the 4th-floor cafeteria, although relatively recent immigrants from the Dominican Republic gravitate to the 5th floor. Blacks gather near a 4th-floor exit. Whites cluster on the ground floor. And outside the classroom, it is hard to find the Asians, the

74. The New York Times, from a report by Sara Rimer

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school's smallest ethnic group. The athletic teams are by and large black and Hispanic. The academic clubs, white and Asian. The Kennedy students talk about this sense of territoriality in a way that on the surface seems loose, natural, without apparent bitterness. But, some say too, that on a deeper level the easy talk stems from a desire to lessen tensions in their lives. Tamy (17), who chose not to give her name, echoed the sentiments of many students. ‘I get along with everyone. Mostly white people stay with white people. Blacks stay with blacks. Dominicans stay with Dominicans. Troy Abel (15) of black and Chinese parents, said, ‘there are more black guys with no white friends here than white guys with no black friends.’ He said some blacks and whites were friendly with each other but most black teenagers avoided whites because of the ostracism they feared such relationships would cause. He cited comments from black peers such as, ‘You hang around with too many white people. You are turning white.’

Dominic Smith (16), an articulate black 10th grader, described a first and last visit to the house of a close friend and class-mate in Riverdale. ‘It felt funny, like I was walking into a place I did not belong. My friend's parents looked at me like I wasn't even human.’ Dominic excused himself and abruptly left. He concluded that close associations with white guys were not worth the embarrassment of possible rejection.^75.

75. The New York Times, from a report by Howard W French