Can diversity occur in school functions run by African Americans?

Yesterday I mentioned the Girls’ Night Out event at my school. It was a good turnout and the kids got out of it some new perspectives and some of them some new friends. The only thing disturbing about the event was the make up of the students.

There were about 70+ girls there, but only about 10 of them were non-African American.

I can only speculate the reasons for that.

The main woman who thought up the idea and the woman who students were to see to turn in their permission slips is an African American woman. The students who were really excited about attending were African American. About 5 of the 12 sponsors were African American.

But that should not deter white and other ethnic students from attending.

Last year the turn out was predominantly African American as well, so we specifically got some non-white girls to help with the planning and to try to spread the word to the other students that it was open for everyone.

I know that people talk about a post-racial society. That sounds great – let’s just all be a part of the human race. But honestly, the social construct of race is something that is not going to go away. Especially when we have people still doing blackface (and not understanding why it is wrong), still talking about the need to stop “race mixing” (saying they are looking out for the children), still not providing enough economic support to schools that are predominantly made up of minority students (don't really understand the reason for this other than to keep these people perpetually in a state of inequality).

Can’t we all just get along?

I hope that as the message of how fun and meaningful the GNO spreads to more girls that we will have more of a complete mix of students as we have our follow up activities throughout the rest of the school year.

I hope that these students and their lack of desire to fully integrate is not going to be representative of what the future of our nation holds.