Black Table Is Still There

Words: 745
Pages: 3

Segregation, the cringeworthy act of separating people based upon race, still exists throughout society to this day. Schools, especially, house voluntarily "segregated" students who separate themselves at different lunch tables, or friend groups, because of their race. Lawrence Otis Graham, author of "The 'Black Table' Is Still There," recounts his personal experience of how he encountered this segregation in junior high school, and how the same exact problem still exists at his junior high school over 14 years later. This discovery perplexes Graham and makes him question how such a degrading action could possibly still be practiced. Throughout Graham's essay, he conveys his personal annoyance at the fact that segregation still exists in junior high schools; despite the fact that segregation as a whole has been battled, to no avail, since the 1950's. Graham revisited his old, largely white junior high school and made a shocking discovery of an all-black lunch table present in the …show more content…
Graham attempts to rationalize his inner discomfort with the "black table," by providing a multitude of examples that detailed uncomfortable scenarios he experienced as a singled out black man. These examples seem to warrant his deep concern about segregated lunch tables, but, at the same time, reveal a rash hatred he has towards segregation. Non-minority readers, who haven't experienced discrimination first-hand, may potentially disavow Graham's argument strictly because of the fact he is apart of a group of people who have been segregated; hinting at the fact that Graham's view could potentially be biased against the practice of segregation in junior high schools, such as his own, because of his