Religion & Law

As a college freshman, I remember lecturing my southern roommate about his region's race problem -- as only an 18 year-old who grew up in the predominantly white Chicago suburbs could do -- and he responded by asking how many blacks went to my high school.  Well, not many at all, a phenomenon underscored by this interesting (and depressing) slide show of the ten most racially segregated metro areas in the country based on new census data.  I don't have any easy solutions to offer, but especially in light of how much time I've spent recently with Martin Luther King Jr.'s body of work regarding the "beloved community," the pervasiveness of segregation is lamentable.  It is difficult to live in solidarity with "the other" when "the other" is largely out of sight.