All my life, I have lived in two worlds. Though we lived in the predominately black, middle-income Cascade area of Atlanta, Georgia, my parents decided early on that I would attend school in Atlanta's rarefied white community, Buckhead.

I grew up with constant influences from the black and white communities, a situation which caught me in that limbo where I was too black to be white but too white to be considered fully black. I learned that inbred stereotypes in both communities would force me to have to constantly explain my "white" traits to my black peers and my "black" traits to white peers.

I also learned that the traditional racial and socioeconomic divides between the black community of Cascade and the white community of Buckhead, my homes, created a troubling ignorance each community had for the other.

Parallels to South Africa

The Apartheid system created intense and total separation between the black and white races of South Africa. Political moves went so far as to remove entire black and colored communities from their homes so as to free the land for the white minority. Post-Apartheid, moves such as this and others left South Africa with entrenched tensions between the races that were largely founded on the ignorance from a lack of interaction between said races.

Like black students in the white communities of Atlanta, the "Colored" mixed race was left as a buffer and absorber of these tensions from both directions.

Polarized communities

Because of the lack of a large middle class, these divides appear more drastic in Johannesburg, yet both cities have polarized communities that seem to come from different worlds.

After the Jim Crow era in Atlanta and Apartheid era in Johannesburg, many steps have been taken to close the gaps between communities of different races and classes. In particular, leaders in both cities have focused on the inequality of general living conditions in white and black communities as it relates to socioeconomic status

The fact that these marginalized sections of Johannesburg and Atlanta do not receive the same quality of public resources as white or upper-class communities and therefore live essentially different lifestyles, greatly contributes to the ultimate lack of understanding between such communities. They truly do come from different worlds, making it difficult to see from the other's perspective.

Working towards a solution

This could be achieved by something as intricate as a world forum with representatives hailing from all one-hundred ninety-five countries or something as simple as individuals becoming aware of communities beyond their own and integrating others' successful practices into their local community.

Still, most of the black populations in both Atlanta and Johannesburg live in segregated, and often inferior, areas of town. Though the process of how these separations came about varies significantly between American and South African histories, the outcome is essentially the same: when sub-communities become isolated from the larger body, they lose touch with reality beyond their own and begin to believe that their way of life is the only one.

Thus, when they come into contact with people of different backgrounds, they bring many stereotypes and generalizations and often confuse "different" with "wrong." It is imperative that, on the local and international levels, communities learn from each other and work to open the minds of the world's next generation of leaders.

What we do not understand, we fear. What we fear, we come to hate. In order to decrease the hatred in our communities, not just in Atlanta and Johannesburg, but all over the world, we must increase understanding. Ultimately, this requires destroying the barriers that separate us.