by Robert Killam

Created on: May 15, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

"Whites Only." For many people in the United States, that phrase was a fact of life for them. For others even today, segregation based on the color of skin is simply an accepted (or tolerated) part of the culture. Arguments can be made that we have come a very long way in fighting racial segregation, but many would still argue that we have a very, very long way to go. Regardless of the fact that "Whites Only" or "Coloreds Only" designations are now absolutely illegal, and regardless of the fact Blacks and Whites can co-mingle anywhere they wish, segregation has left its scars on the face of the United States.

Segregation in this nation began when the nation itself came into being, due to the presence of African slaves. Although the most focused controversies have usually been over Blacks and Whites, racial segregation has also occurred in the United States between Asians and Hispanics (specifically, Mexicans). Though the Irish have also undergone segregation and hatred as well as the Jews, those are forms of prejudice based on nationality, not race.

It is not necessarily made clear whether the prejudice against African slaves "imported" to the United States was based on their skin color or their previous locality, but the fact is that "Negroes" were considered inferior to White people. By the time slavery was ended in 1865 by the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves may have been free of their physical fetters, but it would be another century or so before desegregation even began to set in.

Even after mass desegregation in the United States, people segregated themselves on the basis of race. To this day, talk of "Black neighborhoods" and "White neighborhoods", as well as "barrios" or "Chinatowns" are used as racial epithets among various race groups. Though there are certainly places where people of all races gather together and meet regularly, it is not entirely uncommon to see groups segregated on the basis of race (especially in prisons).

With the desegregation of America came a helping hand: music. Music has served to integrate people, especially between White and Black communities. Younger generations are especially integrated due to the trend that all-Black Run DMC and all-White Aerosmith arguably began with their collaberative effort on "Walk This Way" in 1986. Over the next twenty years (a comparably quick timeframe compared to how long racial integration took), it became common to see White rappers in what some call (non-offensively) "Black culture music".

Through the arts (like music) and through a great deal of activism and political turmoil, America has come to a place where outlandish prejudice is not necessarily common place. It is an ugly truth that will more than likely go on for as long as mankind lasts, but in the United Sates of America, with the election of the first Mixed President, we are becoming more and more integrated. Most hope that the trend continues, until Martin Luther King Junior's dream that people are judged "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" becomes reality.

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