Last weekend, I went out to a club on a Saturday night. I was visiting a friend that I went to high school with and she took me to a place where her and her friends go to at least once a weekend. She explained to me that most of her friends go her weekly as well and that occasionally, the club will see a large population of the black community in Bloomington, Indiana attends as well. She then followed this statement with a precaution for me to be careful and make sure I stayed safe. At first, I did not question this statement, but after taking a large portion of this class, I probably should have. However, we got to the club later in the night only to find that my friends assertion was correct, and a majority of black men and women were there too. We were of course all okay with this, but it was interesting to see the division amongst the two "groups". It was very obvious that towards the front of the club was were the white people were all hanging out, with the exception of a few, and in the black was were most of the blacks were hanging out, again with the exception of a few. As the night continued, more and more of my friends, along with the other white teens that were there, began to dance in the back of the club. However there was still a divide between blacks and whites. They clearly were not socializing nor integrating on the dance floor. It was actually crazy to see this. It reminded be of being "separate but equal". Both blacks and whites were in the same establishment, however they remained completely separate from one another. Finally, after dancing for quite some time now, two courageous black men started dancing with me and another friend of mine. My friend started to laugh and slowly began to back away as I continued dancing. She then pulled me away and claimed that I did not know them and therefore should not be dancing with them. Of course, she was right, I did not know them, so I was completely unaware of their intentions, but did that mean that they were dangerous? I then started to notice as my friend began dancing with another kid, whom neither have us as met, yet none of my friends made any initiative to pull her away. Clearly, they deemed her to be safe because she was dancing with a white man.

It was then when I began to wonder, why the dichotomy? Why is an unknown white man seemingly innocent and an unknown black man seemingly dangerous? This assumption that blacks were inherently more dangerous in a time that we are suppose to be accepting racial boundaries was very saddening to me. I must admit however, I did not feel 100% safe dancing with the black man, which saddened me as well. I knew a friend would pull me away, and I could have guessed their reasoning behind it, because to be honest, I'm sure I would have done that for another friend. We are always taught to stay away from strangers, but not based on the color of their skin. It is clear that our society still has a long way until we become completely integrated and equal, but the more education and knowledge that is brought to the subject, the better. As more and more education is brought to the societal level, changes in the individual level can be seen as well, and hopefully for the better.