In my town in upstate NY, there were boatloads of people of Italian descent, and so many Catholics that they actually left school early on Tuesdays for Religious Education and there would only be a few people left.

However, I can count the number of non-white families on one hand, and that includes a non-practicing Jewish family, 2 multi-race families, a family of Laotion immigrants sponsored by a church group, and a family who had Black foster children.

And where I went to college, it was so white that my best friend and I felt out of place as dark haired, light skinned Italians. Everyone looked like the Hitler Youth.

But she lives in the 'burbs, and boy howdy, are the 'burbs around Detroit segregated. I've never seen a non-white person in her neighborhood, at her church, or in the nearby grocery store. And she's not in a particularly wealthy area—just really, really white.

Milwaukee's a lot like that.

By the same token it can get really old when you're the racial education task force again.

amen.

I've never seen a non-white person in her neighborhood, at her church, or in the nearby grocery store. And she's not in a particularly wealthy area—just really, really white.

Maybe it's just because I live in DC, but wealthy does not always equal white around here.

It gave me a an appreciation for structural discrimination.

what exactly is that and why can you appreciate it?

racial education task force

When I lived in Cincinnati, there was a wickedly funny and sometimes deep column in the city paper called Your Negro Tour Guide (by a black woman, natch.)

what exactly is that and why can you appreciate it?

People are stuck in neighborhoods with terrible schools and don't have the opportunities of people who can move out. I understand it happens, but I can appreciate it because I was living right there in the midst. The kids in those neighborhoods are going to go to schools that are run more like political footballs than places of education. I didn't live it because I had the financial means to move out when it became an actual issue, but I got a glimpse.

What I meant by structural discrimination is that here you have this neighborhood where there is abundant crime and horrible schools. The kids there (not all of them, but probably many) are going to lack the opportunities needed to have the financial means to afford something other than the same kind of neighborhood and so the cycle continues.

I see, but why is it called "structural discrimination"

eta: thanks. Is that your term, or is it used commonly?

Maybe it's not. I may be misremembering the term.

I may be misremembering the term.

okay, cause it sounds like treating houses differently based on whether it has wood studs or sheet rock :)

there was a wickedly funny and sometimes deep column in the city paper called Your Negro Tour Guide

This sounds a lot like ¡Ask A Mexican!, which I heartily recommend to anyone who doesn't know it.