The recent posts at Jaded Ju and Tiger Cafe are excellent observations into how far racial integration has gone and how far it has yet to go. Instead of speculating about other people's motives and feelings (of which I am no authority of) I will offer my own thoughts on the matter.
As a general minority yet academic majority, I do not feel like I fit in anywhere at all. I grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods so for most of my life I have felt different and ostracized (although my reclusive nature probably accounted for a lot of that too). I could not even relate to the few other Asians around. They were the token Asians, popular and highly competitive. And I couldn't even fit in that mold.
When I was thrust into a situation where I was part of the majority, I felt like I had been dumped in a mirror universe. Everyone looked like me, but they didn't believe the same things I did, didn't wear the same things, didn't like the same things, and certainly didn't act like me. I was puzzled as to why the Asians would want to lump so closely together that they excluded everyone else. I was excluded because my behavior did not conform with theirs. (If I want to be honest with myself, I feel like I don't look like the other Asians enough to be accepted. I'm not coy, thin, or pretty. That's probably better in the long run, but geez, I feel like I'm living in a vacuum.)
It's not that I don't have friends. I do. Only that my friends are of the more eclectic mix--where communicating ideas is a stronger motivator than sticking to people just like them. I'm torn between the two conflicting imperatives: should I head on ingrate myself into a group of people suspicious of others in order to fascilitate integration or should I just avoid those not-so-forward-thinking people and stick with the people who are like me? Both don't sit well with me. Although integration is a noble goal, I'm never sure if deep-seated prejudices are changed. As for the people who are like me, they're really not like me.
Integration not only should be about race, but about who you are. I'm tired of being labeled as the chicken in the flock of cuckoos wherever I go. I'm going to roost on my own lonely branch.
A science link: What's in That Bottle of Jack Daniel's? A Chemistry Mystery. Sort of like the European version of Kombucha (unfortunately, I don't remember which issue of the New Scientist I read it in) where a 19th century biologist meticulously separated the jelly glob to determine the two symbiotic bacteria that made the brew.
