There is no longer a need to feel as though everyone's got to go into this big stew and become one big mush. Now it's okay to taste the individual flavors of the potatoes, the carrots, the peas. But there is a new taste, too. More and more of them are feeling alienated, hopeless, and scared - that it doesn't matter what they do because no one really cares about them anyway. And it is not just kids of color.
White adolescents have fewer demons to deal with.
Of course they have their problems, but American society does not reject them because of what they look like. Society often rejects the others, and that changes the way they see themselves. What we've done in American society is to become afraid of our kids. We have allowed some of them to believe they are invincible. We have to stop treating young people like they're miniature adults.