A visitor coming to Fresno City College would notice that white students stand together, black students sit together, Hispanics huddle in their own groups, and so do Asian Americans.

Fresno City College is not alone by any means; this phenomenon, known as self-segregation, has resurrected debates about race, segregation, and desegegation. major news organizations such as CNN and Fox News have done features on this new concept, questioning why individuals would choose to be only with others who look like them in large public settings such as school.

According to FCC Sociology Professor Gerald Bill, self-segregation boils down to what is called “The Push Factor.”

“The Push Factor” according to Bill, is a gut feeling one has that can be linked to a negative experience from that person’s past.

“Say there’s a dog, who in the past had been abused by a male owner. Later on that dog might feel more comfortable around a female owner rather than a male because of the trauma it recieved when it was a puppy. The dog can’t comprehend that just because one male hurt it that other males won’t. It has come to the conclusion that when one male hurts, that means that all males are bad. it’s the same way with people,” explained Bill.

But self-segregation isn’t harmless. An incident in Jena Louisiana illustrates what can happen when it goes oo far. According to the website, colorofchange.org. during a school assembly on Aug. 31, 2006, a black student at Jena High School, jokingly asked the principal if he could sit underneath the “white tree” underneath the shade. The “white tree” that he was referring to was a tree located in the center of the school courtyard that only the white students sat under.

Also according to the website, all the black students would in-turn sit on the bleachers near the auditorium. No incidents between the two groups had ever been recorded up until that point. The principal, sensing that the student was joking, answered, “You can sit anywhere you want.”

The next morning as students arrived at school, they discovered three nooses hanging from the “white tree”. This was an obvious reference to the nooses used to hang Black people during slave times and the Civil Rights Era.

When the principal discovered that three white students where behind the hanging of the nooses, he recommended that they be expelled. The board of education for Jena High, however, overruled his recommendation. The superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, said, “Adolescents play pranks. I don’t think it [the nooses] was a threat to anybody.”

Instead of expulsion, the three students were suspended for three days.

Then, according to the site, a number of Black students organized and implemented a peaceful sit-in underneath the tree which the local police peacefully ended. The principal of Jena High called an assembly during which Black and White students sat apart from each another.

At that point, Superintendent Roy Breithaupt, who had been asked by the principal to speak, allegedly threatened the protesters by saying, “See this pen? I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen.” Black students who attended the assembly said that Walters looked specifically at Black members of the audience as he said this.

During the late 1950’s and throughout the 1960’s, America underwent a number of racially charged incidents during the Civil Rights Movement.

Leaders like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. led organized protests to bring about equality for African Americans and other minorities.

Things like segregation were hot topics back then, openly debated and fought all over the country.

In 1968, all forms of segregation had been declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and by the 1970’s, most opposition to ending segregation had been silenced.

Now, almost forty years later, a number of incidents, including the Jena, Louisiana event, have sparked a nation wide debate.

Many would dismiss the Jena incident as isolated and very distant from California, especially in a school like Fresno City College. After all, Jena is in the South where race tension is still prevalent.

But one needs to look again. What happened at Jena High started because of self-segregation. Largely looked at as a myth, self-segregation has become a much discussed subject, explored by news organizations like CNN and Fox News.

Unlike racial segregation, which forces people to keep within their own ethnicity and not mingle with others, self-segregation is when a person willingly or without thought separates themselves from people of another ethnicity , purely out of choice, on their own free will. They’re not trying to be racist, and most times a person will have numerous friends from different ethnicities but still spend their time with mainly people with whom they share ethnic and race backgrounds.

Black, White, Asian, Latino, and every other ethnicity on Fresno City College campus practice self-segregation.

They all tend to flock around people who are the same color as them even if those people are strangers. Every now and then there will be a different ethnicity sprinkled throughout each group, but for most of the time this is how it works. Nobody ever said, “You can’t hang here because you’re not my color.”

According to the students interviewed who wish to have their last names withheld, “That’s just how it is.”

“I never really thought about it before” said Jennifer, an FCC student in her third semester. “I just kind of go where my friends are. It’s comfortable over here and I don’t have to worry about anybody bothering me.”

Jennifer is white, but told me she has numerous friends who are Black and Latino. “I still hang with them too, it’s just when we come to school we hang out in different places.”

Julio, a student of Latino heritage, said the same thing. “I hang with my friends and we all hang where our friends are. We’re not trying to distance ourselves from anybody else or anything but I guess it just happens.”

James, a former student of FCC, felt differently. “I know when I went to City I would hang out with other black people to feel comfortable. When I hung out with my White friends I would feel stupid cuz I was usually the only black guy standing they’re.” James continued saying that he didn’t no why and that he just did.

Julia, an Asian student who is just starting her first Semester at FCC said, “It’s just easier to hang with people who look like you…there’s no drama.”

Some students still question about the whole self segregation like “Do we hang out with are own ethnicity to stifle the drama that’s hanging around other ethnicities will bring?

The Civil Rights Movement gave people the choice to integrate, but it never said anyone had to. “Maybe that’s it, maybe we wanted integration not because we really wanted to integrate, but just because we couldn’t,” commented an FCC student who wish to be unidentified. “Is it better to have the choice and not use it rather that not having the choice at all? It would seem like that’s the way it is.”

In the end the “white tree” was cut down and one of the Jena six, student Mychal Bell, was found guilty of a reduced charge of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery, according to colorofchange.org.

If convicted he will face up to 22 years in prison. The other five students’ trial dates have not been set. The event’s of Jena, Louisiana has opened many people’s eyes of the fact that segregation still exist.

Instead of being forced to be apart we choose too and avoid trying to come together. As Jena High shows, its better to cut down the “white tree” than have students try and get along and use the tree together. Although, maybe this is the only way for now.
The consensus seems to show that if people avoid this problem or take it away it can’t cause any more problems.