After reading the article, it's quite clear the residents segregated themselves.
These problems started years ago with forced segregation codified in law and have never been solved. To say that they are self-segregating because the law no longer compels them to is not the same as there being no barriers. What you are reading as self-segregation (and this is partially the writer's fault) is the paragraphs about 'both sides like it this way'. What is telling is the reasons both groups give. The white/Cleveland parents give reasons like "just leave us alone. Maybe that’s because I’m a sentimental fool, but I love Cleveland High School and I don’t want it to go away" while the black/East side parents give reasons like "[he] is likely to be East Side’s valedictorian this year, [and] wouldn’t have a shot at that distinction at Cleveland High 'no matter how good his grades are.'"
>white families who "don’t want to be in a small minority,"
Oh really? why not?
> Oh really? why not?
Because race in America is (very, very unfortunately) a proxy for class, and people of one class do not like being a minority amongst another class. Particularly, people of a perceived-higher class do not want their children acculturated in a perceived-lower class.
A desire to not brush elbows with those "others" here is specifically racially charged, and not class charged. Being class based would be bad enough. But the whites in this community are literally blocking improvements for the community as a whole for the sake of letting their precious snowflake children remain the majority in their school while they're the minority in the town.
As examples of why this is about race and not class:
* High minority schools are more likely to have security apparatus (e.g., metal detectors) even after class is partialed out. Amazingly, the likelihood of security at a school is not significantly correlated to actual crime in the area or in the school. [1]
* Drug arrests are incredibly racially charged [2]. Despite more white teenagers both using and dealing drugs, black teenagers are more likely to get arrested for drug possession or use. When arrested, they are more likely to be charged and are sentenced to longer periods of time [3]. This occurs even in Colarado [4]. The follow-on effect of these arrests and guilty pleas is that black teenagers are then inelligible for many forms of government educational aid that is necessary for them to attend college.
* Are you familiar with the 'magical negro' trope in TV? [5] It is actually an empirically researched phenomenon that white people think black people have a higher pain tolerance, extrasensory perception, and superhuman strength [6]
* This occured in 1997: "Duane Buck was sentenced to die in Texas based on testimony of a psychologist who told the jury that Buck was more likely to be dangerous in the future because he is Black"[3] He is still on death row because that wasn't considered a large enough effect on the trial to influence the outcome.
[1]http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/30/white...
[3] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr...
[4] https://www.buzzfeed.com/amandachicagolewis/marijuana-arrest...
[5] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalNegro
[6] http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/10/03/194855061455...