My mom always told me there was no difference between brown and white eggs because on the inside both had the same yellow gooey yolk. She would also say that I should hurry up and choose which egg I wanted to scramble, because they were going to look exactly the same on our black non-stick pan. To this day, I am still unsure whether this was supposed to be a metaphor for people, but in eany event her commentary taught me an important lesson.

The moment the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed I think many people hoped that racism would be abolished along with slavery. And although I wasn't alive in 1865, I would have hoped this, too. Over the years, so many civil rights leaders have worked to erase the idea that people of different colors are different inside, too.

So I have never understood why my high school cafeteria looked like a spotted cow. It was an array of tables in a huge room, all under the same roof, but divided by race; this table full of students of one race, that table full of students of another race. I didn't think it was by some coincidence that the day I walked into the cafeteria, people of the same race decided to sit together.

A couple of years ago, the students who attended the Outward Bound Unity Trip started a "Mix-It-Up" day to solve this problem of lunchroom segregation. For one lunch period, the unity team works to congregate students of all races, economic status and so on, and encourages them to sit together. I attended this event for the first time last year. Surprisingly, the encouragement from the unity team members to "Mix-It-Up" and meet new people really worked.

A couple weeks ago, students gathered again for the second annual "Mix-It-Up" day, which was more widely attended than years past. Students were provided pizza, and even though some came strictly for the food, others did a great job of getting to know new people.

Although past "Mix-It-Up" days have been a success, I realized I was not the only one who had noticed the problem of lunchroom segregation. The segregation that occurs is not official or purposeful, but still happens so often that the Unity Club felt the need to draw attention to the problem.

It astonishes me to know that so many years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I have a dream" speech and after Rosa Parks stayed in her bus seat, there would still be this much segregation in our schools.

King once said that "As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back." And I know that in this day and age we are taking steps forward to creating a more equal world, but somehow this segregated mindset is instilled in the core of our society, and I can only wonder when I will change.

The confusing part is that no one person is doing any wrong. No one is forcing anybody else to sit at one table rather than another. There are no inappropriate comments or crude gestures made. Yet so many people around the school have noticed the ever-present segregation.

If extraterrestrial life is ever discovered, I hope the human population is frightened of the aliens. Because then we can really say that we are scared of a different race. Then we will finally realize that we are all one.

What's on your mind? Pass the Mic is a column written by local high school students about the issues, events and ideas that matter to them. If you're interested in writing for Pass the Mic, we'd love to hear from you. E-mail Dave Hart, associate editor, at dhart@nando.com or call 932-8744.