Julian Bonds Lecture on Brown vs. Board of Education :: Julian Bond Race Affirmative Action

Loose Ends Still Untied Aurora is not known to be the greatest townspeople in the suburbs of lolly, so it is a typical move for the people from my side of town to claim residence in Naperville. I will be the start-off to admit that I have often betrayed my hometown and laid claim to its relatively glamorous neighbor. Naperville is one of the countrys best places to raise a family, or so I have heard. I wouldnt be too surprised, considering the amount of wealth that flows through the town. Naperville offers a mix of people, professionals and their families of various ethnicities and backgrounds however, it lacks true refining diversity. Even though there are whites, blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc., few of its youths are conscious of the various backgrounds because of the economic equality of everyone everyone is equally rich in Naperville (a point of which I and my fellow Aurorans regularly accused our Naperville schoolmates). My high school consiste d of a decent racial blend, and despite a few cultural cliques, everyone was White in conception and in wallet. I did not hold this view at the time, but I had yet to be exposed to reality then. When I came to the University of Illinois, I was attended by a significant force of my high school peers, including all but two of my closest booster amplifiers. During the first few weeks of school, when everybody was fill uping everybody else, I was quick hanging out with my standard high school group and, thus, missed much of the opportunity to make a bounty of new companions. I did, however, meet one person who has become my closest friend and who sparked my introduction to reality. I went to visit him over spring break. It was a Friday, a little past noon. My friend lives around 75th Street, a block from Lake Michigan. For everyone who isnt from the area, I was right in the middle of a very black south side of Chicago neighborhood. When his mother found out I was coming to do lunch, she asked him, Why are you making this boy come out here? My friend responded forthwith Mom, hes not afraid of black people. This was a true statement I never had feared anyone because of race, but his mother instinctively knew, unlike my friend and me, that his hometown and my hometown were polar opposites.