>The geography of American cities is, politically, very very complex and
involves moral choices, involves thinking about how your choices affect other people
and how they've been affected by things way beyond your control that
probably over your lifetime, you're going to want to confront in some way or another too.
>Learning about history, you always learn about some other city that's not your own
so when you hear about it coming from a place that you live directly
it hits home a lot harder than it would if I was talking about some other city.
>One of the things I show the students that got them quite excited was
a series of maps of American cities called the dot maps
where the mapmaker has used census information to create a map
showing the different places where people of different colors and races, different groups
live in the cities. And they're very very stark.
They create a portrait of a very stark segregation still.
>So the thing that really hit home for me was looking at the dot maps that Professor Nightingale brought up
and what these maps showed was the exact divides between different racial groups
whether they be Hispanic, black, white or Asian
and actually seeing a physical representation of that, and seeing that some of the lines were straight...
completely straight, you can't say that's by accident.
So looking at the map and actually looking at the numbers, they don't lie.
So you really can't deny the fact that racial segregation is still in place
even though it may not be in a law
it may not be legally there, but it's still there and we have to address that.
>You know I hope that they'll understand better that it's not just a matter of
choosing where you want to live when you grow up
but it's also the matter of that there are a lot of very important issues at stake for them as citizens
as they think about these kinds of issues, that they embrace
movements that help to create more racial inequality in society
even as they navigate this very unequal system that they're going to be living no matter what.
>I think we should make a change, like changing this housing segregation trend,
the culture that has been happening.
And we should just be more open and
start thinking of living together, basically, so that these things don't happen.
>In particular, I like the idea of moving beyond just the question of diversity
and thinking about inequalities, and thinking about ways in which
our American institutions, in particular, but across the world as well
create these inequalities and to think about what it's like to live in them.
There are institutions out there that create these divisions and they're not
institutions that are necessarily easy to study
they're complicated, they're different, they're bureaucratic institutions.
That it's important to look at institutions like this that seem kind of
a little dull, a little boring, maybe a little bit hard to get your hands on
but that create these really serious injustices that we need to confront in a society like the United States.
>I'm going to be more aware and more conscious of it.
So when I'm walking through the city, or next time I'm in Queens, or say walking around Buffalo
maybe when I'm on the South Campus bus
instead of just plugging in my headphones and then just nodding my head to a beat
I'll actually look outside the window and realize what I'm actually a part of
and maybe go into these cities and maybe visit some of these communities so I can actually see.
And realize there's more to Buffalo than just North Campus and South Campus
and actually explore what's around me.