It really depends on the setting though. Where I'm from, I'm one of the four people in my office with my ethnicity and the only one in my graduate program. I've got about 500 colleagues and in my city and 100 students in my graduate program, my ethnicity represents about 9% of the population, and on the whole the aggregate diversity is extremely high here.
In short, I represent 9% of the population but 0.8% of my office and 1% of my graduate program. At the same time I'm associated with all the other things my ethnicity is stereotypically known for, in which there is overrepresentation. (the usual issues linked with socioeconomic shittyness, like crime).
As such I frequently feel like the other, despite living in a very diverse city. It's like we put water and oil in a pot and say look there's multiple things in the pot. But is it a melting pot? To me, not nearly enough. It's still shocking to me how much segregation there actually is, we've kind of left the discussion of segregation behind us since there's no more segregation by law (inputs), but the outcomes are still very much there.
In short, I represent 9% of the population but 0.8% of my office and 1% of my graduate program. At the same time I'm associated with all the other things my ethnicity is stereotypically known for, in which there is overrepresentation. (the usual issues linked with socioeconomic shittyness, like crime).
As such I frequently feel like the other, despite living in a very diverse city. It's like we put water and oil in a pot and say look there's multiple things in the pot. But is it a melting pot? To me, not nearly enough. It's still shocking to me how much segregation there actually is, we've kind of left the discussion of segregation behind us since there's no more segregation by law (inputs), but the outcomes are still very much there.