not diverse enough

as many of you know, i'm doing my first rotation (family medicine) in burnsville, nc. it's a tiny town of about 1600 residents, quaint and comfortable. the surroundings are beautiful if not wondrous, being in the mountains and all. i meet a lot of people everyday, working at a family practice, and inevitably some of those people ask me, "are you going to come back here and practice?" now, i have a very short response in my mind, which i'll get to, but what generally comes out of my mouth is this, "[laugh] i don't know where i'll end up..." following with my remarking how i'm in the army and how i have military obligations and such. however, what really goes through my mind is, "there are way too many white people here..."

that thought makes me think now, has made me think for a while. it's the same reason, i would never go back and live in iowa, the same reason i think that i wouldn't live any where else where there wasn't an acceptable percentage of people of color. diversity. it's a word i use more when speaking to the locals in this area, particularly when i'm in asheville, when people ask me how i like the area. i tell them fine, but it's not diverse enough. so i'm wondering now, is that statement the same as saying, "there are too many white people." it also makes me wonder how would i feel, if i were white and someone told me where i lived wasn't diverse enough. being the more global-minded person that i am, i expect that i would understand where said person was coming from, that i would be perceptive of my surroundings. along the same lines, i don't ever recall having asked a white person would they live somewhere with the relevant response being, "there are too many black people." interestingly enough, it can be argued that saying "there are too many asians" or "latinos" or "blacks" are all different notions, based on the differences in culture and differences in the perceptions of the respective minority groups. still, the underlying idea is the same.

race is still a touchy topic for most people, and no matter how much i believe myself to have grown as a person, i still have my reservations about white vs color. i still feel more comfortable around people of color, and most comfortable around black people. this is despite the fact that i spent three years in iowa (3% black), going to iowa state university (6% black); despite the fact that i spent a year in switzerland with the only black people being africans who don't really consider themselves black (as we do in america, but that's another subject altogether). a lot of it has to do with growing up in a town where black children get called niggers (an insult meant to inferioritize the target) in school by the white children, where such name-calling is more or less condoned by the teachers. a town where black kids have gone on camping trips with their white friends and have "mysteriously" drowned. a town where even today black voters are turned back from the polls and told they have to go through incomprehensible procedures in order to place their ballots.

i think it's the knowledge of the aforementioned events and experiences that renders me unsettled, regardless of reality. there are many individual white people that i love. there are a couple of white families that i love like my own. i never judge and individual before i meet one, but nevertheless, the large group dynamic does anything but allow me a comfortable mind state. i would hate to think that makes me a racist, but i doubt i'll be able to outgrow the discomfort. so, i would not live here in bursnville, or asheville, and i wouldn't live in iowa, simply because it's not diverse enough...