The great multiethnic experiment

The front-page article ``Most-Segregated US Cities Line the Great Lakes Basin,'' April 11, states: ``Residential segregation has long been the foundation for racial inequality, exacting a high cost in lost opportunity, racial strife, and human suffering.'' The writer left no doubt that he felt segregation was bad. I agree. But the article did not discuss how segregation continues because enough people - white, black, Hispanic - want it.

As the Caucasian father of a multiracial adoptive family, I believe that integration is the only way for this country to go; though one cannot compel integration any more than one can compel affection. One can persuade, argue, and lead by example.

The current fashion is to deride integration as a liberal con game. Careers have been made in academia and politics by clever manipulators who say that whites will never give blacks a fair chance. This, despite massive growth of a sizable black middle class.

The dream of people from every place, of every race, working together to build a better life for themselves and their children is still the newest idea in world history. That's what America can mean; must mean. Elia Michael Larocca, Bismarck, Md.

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