After a long weekend full of ski trips and last goodbyes, we’ve tucked Martin Luther King Jr. and his march for jobs and freedom in our rearview mirror.

We’re back on campus, and it’s suffocating. Not even a fresh start to a calendar year, amid already fleeting resolutions of weight loss and 4.0 GPAs, can seem to hamper the prediction of a predetermined, gradual (or even quite imminent) segregation this semester.

Diversity is present on the Quad and in the classroom, but when it comes down to any non-school-mandated scenario, the mixing of different races is extremely hard to find. Neither King nor the upcoming Black History Month can combat this issue of campus segregation because unlike King’s time, it seems we are proud to announce that our segregation is voluntary.

It reads like a play, that in an upstate school boasting private, exclusive membership, it is the differences of race — instead of the shared likeness of scholarship — that decisively dictates this school’s social scene. It’s a play with a never-ending yet predictable plot with interchangeable players.

The school has made great strides that should not be overlooked in terms of the ethnic minority issues itself. A strong collection of ethnic-interest fraternities, sororities and clubs have been met with the approval of the school and its faculty.

But with that sense of ethnic opportunity and pride intact on campus, the reality of ethnic exclusivity looks more and more like the overwhelming reality.

When students of different backgrounds and viewpoints are given every ample opportunity to intermix and mingle, they don’t. We stick to our own corners and pockets of racial familiarity because we are comfortable with what we know and what we’ve seen before. And because we’re doing everything we’ve already seen before, the same stereotypes exist, and some of the brightest students are content with walking past each other only to talk about each other behind their backs.

It’s understandable because clashes of culture on campus can be painfully awkward, an increasingly frustrating fact because these awkward encounters are often difficult steps toward progress.

You may be asking: Is integration or progress even necessary? If everyone is content and comfortable with being separate, why force an issue that only validates the presence of racial anxiety and misunderstandings? It’s a tough question because everyone seems so ready to play their own part, to fall into the habit of what was already laid out for them in campus life on account of races.

Voluntary segregation is hurting a community of people who still have so much to learn from one another. All great ideas are not possessed by one race alone, and no two people look at anything in the same way. Isn’t that enough to interact with one another?

A man I respect dearly told me once that your true heart, ambition and love are reflected in what you invest time into, that time is the greatest affirmation of care and compassion.

It’s been a long time since King joined hands with and invested trust in people who were different from himself to march against a government that forbade his daughter from even going to a circus she saw on television.

Every relationship takes time to forge. We must budget accordingly. How lucky are we that we’re only at the beginning of this new year.

Josh Lee is a sophomore communication and rhetorical studies major. His column appears online every Thursday, and he can be reached at jalee172@syr.edu.

Published on January 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm