Segregated communities

So I went on a small trip this weekend back to my First Nation, and I did some visiting, encouraging, a little bit of politiking. Yet if that did not fill my weekend, it ended off where I actually ran into some conventional attitudes. It is funny how segregated communities are the worst for initiating bias. And of course segregating has a way of producing a pathology that is nothing more than anti-social behavior. Of course it is one thing to to live in a community that has great initiatives for intercultural relationships, but yet it is still part and parcel to our province that other communities particularily here in Saskatchewan are just backwards when it comes to other people. How is that a person can go into a community, and feel that they do not belong, especially in a public place. It seems to me it is all related to cultural learning, at that: and that even though racism is wrong it certainly has its places where it is still predominant. This is 2008 and you would think this segregating would have outgrown its pervasiveness.
Egad! I mean it is not those who are forced into segregation, that are socially problematic but it is people who feel they have to live away from anybody that is different. I sure hope people will not put their head in the sand, and will hear that their way is indeed, itself problematic. Thank goodness we have become more civilized, and can actually bring peace and understanding to places that need to know there is a world beyond our own segregated communities. I would rather see people that know how to interact with others running our country, rather than people who have a closet full of questionable cultural hang-ups. We can never change those differences but we can certainly interact despite how others act.