The concepts of race and ethnicity are used to describe distinct groups of the population. The difference is that race characterizes unique physical traits such as skin color or eye shape that distinguish one category of people from another. Ethnicity is about the culture with which a person identifies himself and national origin. According to Kendall (2015), the critical characteristics of ethnic groups are territoriality, common cultural traits such as language or religion, a sense of community, and a membership acquired from birth. Therefore, the representatives of one race might belong to different ethnic groups.
Even though in the 21st century, people devote a lot of attention to fighting against segregation on the racial ground, in Dallas, this issue is becoming worse every year. This is particularly evident since the black and Latino families reside in the suburbs, where the housing prices are lower, while the whites mainly live in the city center. Another fact that reveals segregation is that the representatives of different races occupy different parts of the city. Blacks live in the southern part, while whites – in the north one, and the Hispanic population – in the western part. Furthermore, according to the survey conducted by Chen (2019), only 5 percent of students at the Dallas Independent School District are white. Chen (2019) also claims that in some Dallas districts, the number of black students in schools increased, whereas the number of white students dropped. This way, it becomes evident that segregation flourishes in Dallas.
I believe that segregation has a devastating impact on the relations between the representatives of different races or ethnicities. Sometimes groups of black and white people fight with one another. For me, it seems stupid to hate people and fight with them just because of different skin color, eye shape, and hair texture. However, such clashes are inevitable as long as people divide the city into the parts that belong to the whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. As noted on PBSs website (2014), people cannot pretend that races do not exist to eradicate inequality, discrimination, and segregation. The entire community will be better off if the government employs policies that would artificially prevent segregation and unite people.
References
Chen, G. (2019). Continued Segregation in Dallas Schools Puts Minorities at Risk. Public School Review. Web.
Kendall, D. (2015). Sociology in our times. (11th ed.) Wadsworth.
PBS. (2014). RACE – The power of an illusion. Web.