Last weekend my aunt and her husband came to visit me. I took them for the perfunctory tour around campus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and like most first-time visitors to Dartmouth, they were struck by its beauty.
But as we were walking, my uncle turned to me and said, "Where are all the black people? There's no black people here. I saw about four, five but no more."
I was a little taken back by both the innocence and the bluntness of this remark. Jose, a native-born Puerto Rican, is a little more used to a diverse racial and cultural environment than I am.
For me, seeing only four or five black people around in a sea of whites was perfectly normal in my predominantly white suburb of New York City. But at least in high school I could say that three of the about 10 or 12 African-American students in my high school of 300 were in my close circle of friends.
I cannot say that here. I am acquainted with a few African-American students, but that's it.
Where are all the black people, I wondered? As I told Jose, the College certainly makes an effort to recruit them and even hosts a special minorities prospective weekend to try to get them to come here.
There is also black affinity housing and a vocal African-American Society. There are black fraternities and sororities on campus.
Oh no! I'm falling into that "us" and "them" categorization. How did this happen? Maybe because the dynamics of this campus are such that most white students like myself see their African-American peers only from a distance. It seems as though the Dartmouth community, perhaps not unlike the country as a whole, is falling into a system of voluntary segregation. Or is it so voluntary?
I understand the many reasons why African-American students might prefer their own company, to live in their own dorm, to belong to their own Greek organizations, to write their own newspapers, even have their own Convocation.
But I fear that all this voluntary separation only heightens the distrust and misunderstanding between blacks and whites.
The African-American community might think, "Are you putting the burden on us to reach out to white students, after putting up with so many years of rejection?" Partially, yes, because white students are by and large too scared to bring up the topic with African-American students, for fear of being called racist.
I think most white students here are supportive of the African-American community's desire to form its own associations. We just wish they would come out of their enclaves once in a while and talk to us. A lot of my friends, both male and female, have expressed a desire to get to know more black people on this campus, even develop a friendship, but they don't know where to start.
I think for the most part black and white students socialize on two totally different planes.
Lani Guinier, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the former Supreme Court nominee, wrote about this dilemma in an editorial in Tuesday's New York Times.
We need to stop talking in code words and come out of our separate corners. "We may be uncomfortable talking about such things, our common destiny depends on just such honest talk," she wrote.
I think that one can apply Guinier's thoughts to our campus situation. We need some more honest talk about race on this campus, because as it stands now, all we do is jump up and down about crises of the moment: the Rodney King verdict, the L.A. riots, the latest diatribe of The Dartmouth Review.
You do not hear much honest talk about day-to-day issues concerning race. It will not be easy to achieve this kind of dialogue. But we cannot go on forever with this "you stay on your side, I'll stay on mine" attitude.
Race is probably this country's biggest social problem and if our generation doesn't deal with it more effectively, it may explode.
Actually, it already has, in fits and starts. If we start to talk to each other on campus, we'll be better prepared once we we're in the real world. I just hope that the next time somebody asks me where all the black people are, I'll have a better answer.
