Self-segregation. The term suggests a group of people who willingly choose to separate themselves from the rest of the community. Using the term makes the assumption that those "self-segregationists" have consciously made a choice to remain closed within their own respective communities, that they have chosen to create divisions between people like them and not like them.

For these very assumptions that lie behind the label, it is important to recognize the danger in using the term.

With that aside, one cannot deny the fact that our campus has many divisions. One cannot deny the fact that almost all the racial minorities on our campus have very strong communities and that when walking around Dartmouth, it can be intimidating to see the groups of Asian students, African American students, Latino students, Native American students, etc. sitting within their own circles. To a student who is not a member of one of these communities, it can be hard to penetrate into these groups. To students who are members of these communities – and I write as one of these students – the comfort level that these communities provide can become too comfortable, limiting to one’s way of thinking.

However, the presence of strong racial communities on our campus is essential and perhaps inevitable for all students on this campus to find a niche, a place of their own. Without them, we send the message to racial minorities that they must conform to the majority lifestyle in order to fit in at Dartmouth, that their own cultures have no place on this campus. It is human nature for people to gravitate towards others who share similar backgrounds, similar interests, and similar upbringings. What is threatening about that? Look around at your own friends and you will see there is a common bond that brought you all together. Yet somehow a group of students of color is somehow more threatening than a group of Caucasian students. Implicit in this fear is the notion that when people of color mix together, they are closing themselves off, making themselves less approachable. It seems that racial divisions naturally pop up when students of color attempt to establish their own alternative communities and assert their own identities.

So, are these racial divisions real or imagined? Clearly there is a lack of understanding on this campus, as demonstrated by recent campus events. Dartmouth has given its students the space to practice their own lifestyles and celebrate racial and ethnic pride. No one will deny a student the right to organize a culture night or eat the food of his or her culture. But beyond that, there is little attempt to establish a true understanding of the different cultures on campus, to have discussions on the race issues on campus that every student participates in and learns from. That is how divisions on this campus arise.

The lack of desire to create awareness on campus goes both ways. It is too easy for majority students to ignore issues of race and ethnicity at Dartmouth and so these issues become harder to understand and are pushed aside. On the same token, minority students can become too comfortable in their own communities and forget that they too must try to reach beyond their own comfort zones.

No one group of people can be blamed for the divisions on this campus and it is up to the individual to choose whether to adopt an open or closed mindset. Regardless of your own race, participate in a discussion on race and ethnicity. Regardless of your own gender, get engaged in a discussion on female and male roles in our society. Regardless of your own sexual orientation, educate yourself about GLBT issues.

Each one of us has to make a conscious choice to be open-minded before any real changes occur on our campus.