TEENS IN AREA POLLED ON RACE

Ben Keefe sees racism every day at Cape Girardeau Central High School. Usually it is subtle, not very disruptive, but troubling for a teen-ager.

"When I was little, everyone was friends with everyone," said Keefe, who will be a junior this fall. "But as we are getting older there is getting to be more tension because everyone stays within their own race."

Keefe was among more than 600 teen-agers from Southeast Missouri who participated in a nationwide survey of racial attitudes.

The survey was conducted by USA Weekend magazine and the results are in today's issue appearing in the Southeast Missourian. USA Weekend selected the Missourian to receive tabulated results of local responses to compare with the national results.

The results show that Southeast Missouri students were more positive about race relations in their schools than the national sample.

However, they don't seem as likely to cross the race lines in friendship and dating as the students in the national sample.

Less than half of Southeast Missouri teens say they have a close friend of another race, compared to nearly three-fourths of the teens in the national sample.

And less than half the local teens said they would date a person of a different race, compared to 71 percent nationally.

Southeast Missouri teens are more likely than the national sample to believe their parents and grandparents carry racial prejudice. Half the local teens think their parents would oppose cross-racial dating, compared to 28 percent nationally.

Some 80 percent of Southeast Missouri teens report they mainly hang out with people of their own race and the same percentage say they don't think this cliquishness leads to racial tension.

In the national sample, 64 percent report cliques along racial lines and 44 percent think this exclusivity contributes to racial tensions.

The racial composition of the Southeast Missouri sample is overwhelmingly white. The national sample is much more diverse. Also, students described 86 percent of local schools as mostly or all one race. Some 45 percent of the schools in the national sample fit that description.

Keefe, who is white, said the survey results are right; students he knows associate almost exclusively with people of the same race.

"Even at football games and soccer games, whites tend to sit with whites and blacks sit with blacks," he said. "I guess you can't make everyone come together and be friends."

But Keefe wonders how much of the separatism is based on racism and how much on peer pressure.

For example, Keefe said he wouldn't date a girl of another race, not because he is prejudiced, but rather because no one else does it.

He knows only one person who has dated a person of another race.

Inter-racial couples and friendships attract attention, he said. Often teen-agers want to fit in with the crowd and not to stand out as different.

While racism exists at Central High, Keefe said the situations don't mirror pictures from New York or Los Angeles.

"Everyone basically knows everybody else," Keefe said. "It's a small school."

When tense situations arise, the typical reaction is to ignore it and not say anything, he said.

Keefe doesn't know if racism ever will be eliminated.

"People always have attitudes and they carry those attitudes down from generation to generation," he said.

Sometimes people can say the right things, but paying lip service doesn't change their true beliefs.

Diandrai Webb, who is black, sees hidden prejudices in some of the people he meets. "They don't want to be prejudiced, but they are," he said. "They just try not to show it."

Webb will be a senior at Central High this fall.

White people don't understand the different experiences black people have, Webb said.

"It's hard to explain if you haven't lived it," he said. "Some people treat you different. You can see how they are different around you."

Webb is hopeful that race will become less and less of an issue. He sees teens as more accepting than adults and hopes by the time he has children, they won't experience racism.

When Webb dated a white girl, it wasn't a big deal for him, his friends, her or her friends. But he attributes the acceptance to his own positive feelings about the relationship.

"It takes a strong person," Webb said.

"Black kids need role models," he said. "I'm lucky. I have my parents. But other kids aren't as lucky. They look around and don't see any hope."

Christine Groves experienced a brush with racism over the past year. When her cousin dated a person of another race, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives disapproved.

"Me and my mom are the only ones who were supportive," said Groves, who will be a freshman at Notre Dame this fall.

Groves, who is white, would consider dating someone of another race if that person was nice. But in reality, she probably won't because her extended family feels so strongly against inter-racial dating.

But Groves is hopeful for the future. She sees teens as less prejudiced than their parents and grandparents.

"I think parents don't want their kids to be racist, so even if the parents are, they teach their children not to be," she said.

She is also confident a member of a minority will be elected president of the United States within her lifetime.

"Why not?" she asks.